“The climate is chillingly similar in terms of the massive capitulation and conformity”

By David Walsh 
Dateline: 8 February 2018

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It is “Scoundrel Time” again in Hollywood, complete with denunciations, anonymous informants, humiliating “confessions,” trial by media and the banning of prominent performers.

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The ongoing sexual misconduct campaign, spearheaded by the New York Times, Time magazine, the Washington Post and leading sections of the Democratic Party, has “cleansed” the film and television industry of dozens of figures and threatens a great many more. It goes hand in hand with the anti-Russia and “fake news” hysteria and attempts by Google and Facebook to clamp down on the Internet.

The charges against producer Harvey Weinstein, launched by the Times and former Obama administration official Ronan Farrow, were merely a pretext, the thin end of the wedge. The effort that began in October has turned into a full-blown witch hunt, in which careers and reputations have been destroyed overnight, democratic rights and due process trampled on, the sexually unorthodox denounced and excluded, attention diverted from the social crisis in America and the drive to war, and sections of the upper-middle class whipped into a frenzy.

Like every other “human rights” and “women’s rights” campaign, foreign and domestic, staged by the American ruling elite during the past two decades or more, the supposed drive to root out “sexual predators” in Hollywood, the media and elsewhere is a cynical fraud. By now such slogans ought to arouse a great deal of skepticism.

This drive will not advance the position of working class women or the overwhelming majority of female performers one inch, although there is an already affluent layer that hopes to improve its lot. On the contrary, the current witch hunt is directed at imposing conformity and repression in line with reactionary identity politics.

It has already resulted in unprecedented acts of censorship, including the elimination of Kevin Spacey from a film and James Franco from a national magazine cover, and the cancellation of a major exhibition by painter Chuck Close. If the initiators of this effort have their way, all this is merely the beginning.

The Golden Globes awards ceremony on January 8 was an appalling display of self-centeredness and self-pity. A succession of extremely privileged individuals, led by billionaire Oprah Winfrey, bemoaned their sad fate and, as we noted, “expected viewers to believe that the ‘MeToo’ movement constituted an epic chapter in the struggle for human liberation.”

The spectacle of performers and others being pressured to confess, and their friends and former co-workers pressed to turn them in, should alert anyone with a trace of historical memory to parallels with the McCarthyite purge of left-wing figures in Hollywood in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

I recently spoke about these echoes of the postwar “Red Scare” with Max Alvarez, author, film historian and speaker on the subject of world cinema culture based in New York City. A former visiting scholar and guest lecturer for The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, Max has presented over 200 lectures, seminars, study tours and film screening events for cultural organizations around the US. His current lecture topics include “Cold War Hollywood: The Blacklist Years,” “Hollywood in The White House,” and “The Media and the Movies.”

Max was previously a newspaper film critic, entertainment journalist and museum film curator, and is the author of The Crime Films of Anthony Mann(University Press of Mississippi) and a major contributor to Thornton Wilder/New Perspectives (Northwestern University Press).

This is our conversation.

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David Walsh: Our article on the WSWS the other day was headlined “Scoundrel Time Returns,” and it argued that there were definite parallels between the present sexual misconduct campaign and the anti-communist purges of the late 1940s and 1950s. Based on your knowledge of that history, does this seem legitimate to you?

Max Alvarez: Absolutely. Clearly, this is not as organized a political campaign as the one that took place in the 1940s and 1950s, but the climate is chillingly similar in terms of the massive capitulation and conformity in the entertainment industry. We saw this conformity back in the 1950s, when people were very quick to turn on their friends, inform on them and deny employment to people who they formerly worked with, based on political orientation.

I think that many people in the industry are unnerved, particularly as we move into the awards season. There is a degree of tension in the film industry that we have not seen since the 1950s.

We see these extraordinary attacks going on at present, this type of public shaming and humiliation in which the media serves as judge, jury and executioner. Charges are being made without the accused knowing who the accuser is. Careers are coming to an immediate end without any kind of official investigation or attempt at some semblance of a legal process. This is not coming from the evangelical right, from the nether regions of the Republican Party, although there are many sympathizers there no doubt.

 

The attacks are coming from liberal, “left” quarters. That is very sobering. In Hollywood, in safer times, after the fact, when people looked back on the blacklist era, they would say things like, “What were they thinking?” “That would never happen again,” “We would never turn on our own like they did back then!” So much for that theory! It’s incredible how people are caving in today, in many cases within a matter of milliseconds.

DW: For the benefit of our readers, and there may be many younger readers who don’t know a great deal about it, could you explain a bit about the anti-communist blacklist and its origins?

MA: Certainly. It’s a strange journey. We see in early 1934 something called House Resolution No. 198, and that establishes what we come to know as the House Committee on Un-American Activities, or HUAC.

HUAC became notorious for its investigations into the Hollywood film community, officially starting in 1947, going after people who had been involved in left-wing activities. Perhaps they had been involved with the Communist Party USA, perhaps they were just supporters of the New Deal, perhaps they were liberals who had signed a few too many petitions that were no longer politically convenient. Such individuals were called to testify before this committee and account for their political activities.

In 1934, however, the committee was focusing on Nazi supporters in the United States. It was about a year and a half after Hitler came to power in Germany, and there were concerns about Nazi sympathizers in the US. At the same time, there was some interest in people who were sympathetic to communism and supportive of the Soviet Union. But that didn’t really develop in a significant way until somewhat later.

The first citation I’ve been able to find in regard to “reds” in Hollywood is a New York Times article from August 9, 1934. The headline is “Hollywood stars said to back Reds.” A Los Angeles police captain is telling HUAC at that time that there were all these film stars who were sympathetic to the Communist Party.

In 1938, we have something called the Special Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities (sic), which is also known as the Dies Committee, and that’s chaired by Rep. Martin Dies, a right-wing Democrat from Texas. It started looking into alleged communist subversion in Hollywood and held some hearings at that time.

The media was a mixed bag. At first, there was some skepticism in the media. There were the Walter Winchells and Hedda Hoppers, gossip columnists, who were totally committed to the witch hunt. But there was some skepticism before, during and after the first round of hearings.

For example, I’ve found an article from Variety in June 1949 that attacks the efforts to besmirch the film industry with a “red” label. Hollywood as a red scapegoat, it says, is no longer paying off. “Loose labeling misfires.” It’s a sarcastic article about the hearings.

This skepticism will become less frequent by the time of the next hearings in 1951.

DW: By that time, politics had swung much farther to the right, and the victims were in far less favorable circumstances.

MA: Liberal opposition to the victimization of the Hollywood Ten and others was very short-lived. At the time of the 1947 hearings, there was the Committee for the First Amendment, which was organized by Hollywood liberals like Danny Kaye, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Richard Conte, Paul Henreid and John Huston. They flew to Washington to show their support for the Hollywood Ten.

They became very frightened once they got there and realized how serious things were, and they were clearly unprepared for the viciousness of the campaign. As well, their employers back in Hollywood made it clear that if they were to continue their protests they would not be able to find employment. Marsha Hunt, for example, who was a liberal Democrat, found herself blacklisted simply because she had been part of the Committee for the First Amendment. So that initial wave of support evaporated almost instantaneously.

Between the hearings, there were columnists like Hopper and others who were denouncing communists in Hollywood. A few years later, she notoriously congratulated the judge who sentenced the Rosenbergs to death.

The Hollywood Reporter, a very right-wing trade paper at the time, was also very committed to keeping alive the myth that there was a communist conspiracy to take over Hollywood.

It’s hard to be pro-labor and pro-union when you read how the Hollywood guilds and unions behaved. The Screen Actors Guild, the Writers Guild and others. The Screen Actors Guild had Ronald Reagan as its president, from 1947 to 1953, at the height of the red scare. And, unbeknownst to his members, he was an informer for the FBI. Reagan was turning in his own members to the bureau while acting as president.

The foul role of IATSE [International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees]—the powerful technicians union—under the right-wing stewardship of Roy Brewer is very well-known. Brewer testified before HUAC and decades later worked in the Reagan administration. The unions were very committed to the anti-communist fight.

DW: This is a big question, which you may want to answer briefly. What was the long-term cultural and artistic impact of the witch hunt in the 1940s and 1950s?

MA: The impact was quite significant. Thom Andersen, who made an excellent documentary, Red Hollywood [1996], wrote an essay and referred to a series of films of this time as film gris [grey film], not film noir [black or dark film], films made roughly between 1947 and 1951.

Many of these films were made by people who later were blacklisted or who later became cooperative witnesses. Films such as Body and Soul, Force of Evil, Ruthless, Try and Get Me [The Sound of Fury], He Ran All the Way, The Lawless, The Boy with Green Hair, movies that had critical things to say about American society, about bigotry or big business, or that dealt with working class issues.

DW: To begin having compassionate and realistic portrayals of African Americans, even in small roles, there needed to be Communist Party supporters or other left-wing writers and directors, or sometimes European exiles. Otherwise black actors played maids and servants, or worse.

MA: Many of these films were independently made, and that cycle of films pretty much came to an end as the result of what HUAC did in the late 1940s, once a lot of people started getting blacklisted and others became frightened. The movies that were made immediately after World War II could not have been made after 1951. The culture was affected because the studios were reluctant to deal with social issues as directly as these earlier films had.

Now the issues had to be introduced in a more subterranean manner, through many excellent Westerns, for example, and through other genres. There were potent films in the 1950s that blacklistees worked on, in some cases, but they had to be more cautious.

DW: I dislike the term film noir. I prefer “American neo-realism.” One could add many other titles, including The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, Caught, Out of the Past, The Stranger, The Lady from Shanghai, They Live by Night, He Walked by Night, Raw Deal, Gun Crazy, Brute Force, Otto Preminger’s films of the time, Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux, for that matter. There are many interesting and radical works during this period.

The realistic view of life and relations is quite intense and intriguing. All taking place, of course, within the limits of the Production Code and so forth.

MA: The fate of a film like Edgar G. Ulmer’s Ruthless is interesting, because it did undergo partial censorship. There are various versions of the film. The producer got cold feet after the HUAC hearings. This is a film about a “ruthless,” brutal businessman, and the final line is, “He wasn’t a man, he was a way of life.”

The actress Betsy Blair, who was blacklisted, once commented she felt the films that came out after the blacklist were less concerned with what caused human beings to behave in a certain way, in other words, with the social causation of human behavior.

There were films in the 1950s that made allusions to HUAC, like High Noon and Silver Lode. There’s a film, Gun the Man Down, written by Burt Kennedy (most famous later for his films with Budd Boetticher), which came out in 1956, where one of the villains is named Rankin, presumably “in honor” of the Mississippi congressman, the racist, anti-semitic Rep. John Rankin of HUAC. But there was caution and discretion.

DW: What similarities do you see between the McCarthyite purges and the present sexual misconduct witch hunt?

MA: I remember director Abraham Polonsky, who was blacklisted and who was very committed to the Communist Party, once commenting, speaking of that era, that “the worst” were the liberals, in terms of how they responded and capitulated. I’m getting a sense of what he means by observing what’s taking place now. As I say, these attacks are coming from liberal or “left” areas. More so than in the 1950s.

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It’s very chilling to observe, the immediacy of careers coming to an end. It also brings to mind Stalinism and the airbrushing of commissars who had been liquidated, the fact that someone like actor James Franco can be digitally removed from a Vanity Fair cover, that Kevin Spacey can simply be cut out of and replaced in an entire feature film, All the Money in the World. This is unprecedented. It certainly goes beyond what even was going on in the 1950s during the Hollywood Red Scare.

DW: In terms of the Spacey situation, you have found no evidence of anything like that being done in the 1940s or 1950s?

MA: I searched and searched. Of course, actors are always getting replaced in films. We’ve had cases in which a film was nearing completion and the producer says, you know, we just need to get a different actor and reshoot all their scenes. Even in recent films. But those were not, to my knowledge, politically based decisions, those were just decisions, right or wrong, made by the creative team.

During the blacklist period, I could find no case where someone was cut out of a movie entirely and replaced with someone else because they had not cooperated with HUAC. What tended to happen was that during the production, let’s say, an actor received a subpoena and he or she made it clear that he or she was not going to cooperate. The studio’s attitude was, ‘All right, we’ll finish this damn picture, but forget about any jobs after this.’ So the person was allowed to appear, they might get credit, but after that, unless they cooperated, their career was finished. In terms of refilming an entire role, I was not able to find such an example.

If there was a film with a politically sensitive theme, and the producer became nervous, they simply would not give it a good release, it would effectively be buried. They might not release it to their best theaters, for example. After a first run, it might simply be thrown into the vaults. This is the world, after all, before television, video, etc. Of course, this is what happened to the pro-Soviet, pro-Stalinist films that the studios made between 1943 and 1945, movies like Mission to Moscow, Song of Russia, Counter-Attack. Those were simply taken out of release permanently and unavailable for half a century or more.

Now, there is the case of Charlie Chaplin, when all the political heat was exerted on him and he was forced to leave the country essentially. He became persona non grata. We were certainly not going to be seeing the earlier Chaplin films shown as regularly during the 1950s. So that was a form of retroactive punishment. There was a major revival of his work in 1972-73.

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DW: We made the point in that “Scoundrel Time Returns” article that the relative openness on sexual matters in American filmmaking that emerged in the 1960s was in part a response to the straitjacket of the McCarthy period.

MA: I agree. There was the influence of European film. There was the breakdown of the Production Code in the 1960s. It was a license for directors and producers to be more explicit. I definitely think there was a reaction to the puritanical values that had dominated.

Although the 1950s was a contradictory period. There was a good deal of sexual provocation in the films, but they had to be more discreet about it. Let’s say, the ’60s took the ’50s to the next level, and clearly there was a rebellion against the constraints that were put on filmmakers in general.

DW: Reading about the history of the film industry’s Production Code, and the man in charge, Joseph Breen, one is again astonished that anything of substance and subversiveness was made in Hollywood. There was an attempt to suffocate any critical or independent thought, or realism about the world.

MA: Yes. In addition to the Breen Office, there were in many places state and local censorship boards. Then there were the right-wing pressure groups—very vigilant groups!—like the Legion of Decency and the American Legion, etc. It is remarkable that significant and hard-hitting films came out nonetheless. Under certain dictatorships it may have been easier. In the US, there was a bewildering assortment of perverse, bureaucratic censors and red tape.

The Breen Office supervising the Production Code in Hollywood did not simply pay attention to sex and violence. It was about political content as well. Breen was very concerned with how big business and religion and the police, and the country in general, were being portrayed. It was an oppressive situation.

DW: As a final point, you expressed earlier, and with some degree of passion, your astonishment at the cowardice and hypocrisy we are witnessing in Hollywood and the media generally at the moment. People obviously feel that if they open their mouths, once again, their careers will be over.

MA: Today, of course, you are dealing with the incredible immediacy of these attacks, through social media and the Internet, so now you have people weighing in and discrediting actors and others within a matter of seconds. There is this fear, if one speaks out, of a career coming to an end. We see how easily this can be done.

That was also the motivating factor in the 1940s and 1950s. Individuals capitulated because they were looking after their careers, although many at the time, director Elia Kazan being the most notorious example, justified their capitulation and their cooperation with HUAC on the grounds they had they suddenly woken up to the evils of the Soviet Union.

However, the men they were confessing to were not admirable citizens. They were anti-Semites and racists, and often fascist sympathizers. It makes a mockery of that argument.

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DW: Yes, we made that point at the time of Kazan’s special Academy Award in 1999, that he and the others had entrusted the cause of “human freedom” to Allen Dulles, the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover, the American military and company.

It’s a shameful time again.

MA: Informing or making a deal was a central part of the process at the time.

DW: Making confessions and doing similar things is part of the process now. There is immense pressure being put on prominent figures, as there was in the 1950s, to chime in and denounce the accused. Silence is not possible. You have to be publicly in support of #MeToo, denounce the appropriate people, or your career is at risk.

MA: At the time, there was a wonderfully named lawyer, Martin Gang, and he would coach you on how to appear before HUAC, what to say, how to talk about yourself. You had to explain that you had been very young when you participated in left-wing circles, Russia was an ally at the time, you didn’t know what you were doing, and you were so sorry, etc. You had to do a complete mea culpa. “I was a dupe, or a dope,” as they used to say. Then you had to give them names. The problem arose with people who were prepared to talk about themselves, but not give names of others. That was the critical issue, the acid test. You could be cited for contempt and threatened with a jail sentence.

DW: All of this is happening again, in somewhat different form, and no one has apparently learned anything in Hollywood.  

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Charge of the Right Brigade:
Ukraine and the Dynamics of Capitalist Insurrection

A treatise on the upheaval in Ukraine, in eight takes.
First published on march 14, 2014
(SEE PART 2 OF THIS SERIES HERE)

The money shot:

As tensions rose on the streets of the Russian-speaking eastern portion of Ukraine, the response of the new government in the capital on Sunday was not to send troops, but to send rich people. The interim government, worried about Russian efforts to destabilize or seize regions in eastern Ukraine after effectively taking control of the Crimean peninsula in the south, is recruiting the country’s wealthy businessmen, known as the oligarchs, to serve as governors of the eastern provinces. The strategy, which Ukrainian news media are attributing to Yulia V. Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and party leader, is recognition that the oligarchs represent the country’s industrial and business elite, and exercise great influence over thousands of workers in the east, which is largely ethnically Russian.The office of President Oleksandr V. Turchynov announced on Sunday the appointments of two billionaires — Sergei Taruta in Donetsk and Ihor Kolomoysky in Dnipropetrovsk — and more were reportedly under consideration for positions in the eastern regions….The ultra-wealthy industrialists wield such power in Ukraine that they form what amounts to a shadow government, with empires of steel and coal, telecoms and media, and armies of workers. Persuading some to serve as governors in the east was a small victory for the new government in Kiev.¹

Has there ever been a more pathetic postscript to a putative “revolution”? This act by Ukraine’s new-old rulers encapsulates everything that’s wrong with the phony “democracy promotion” advanced by American “regime changers,” everything that’s wrong with the recent history of the post-Soviet republics, and everything that was wrong with Soviet Stalinism.  It’s a sorry symptom of the sad state of politics and ideology in Ukraine, and in the whole wide neo-liberal world.  More on that later.

Let’s take a careful look at what has happened in Ukraine.

It was an insurrection

What occurred in Ukraine is the overthrow of a democratically-elected government and the subversion of parliamentary democracy by an insurrection.  There can be no serious argument about this. According to the extant standards of bourgeois democracy, Viktor Yanukovych was freely and fairly elected. There was and is no dispute about that. His party, the Party of the Regions, was elected as the largest in the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament). He was driven out of office and out of the country, and his party was effectively overturned in parliament, by an armed insurrection.

Yanukovych was so corrupt

He certainly was, before and after his election. But so are his political opponents, all of whom are in the pockets of one oligarch or another. This includes his former nemesis, and the woman some in the West see “almost as a modern-day saint,”² Yulia Tymoshenko, who is a corrupt oligarch in her own right. She made a fortune in sweetheart natural-gas deals in the 1990s with then-Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko—deals for which Lazarenko was prosecuted and convicted, and Tymoshenko named as a co-conspirator, in the United States. This earned her the nickname of “The Gas Princess,” and because she was very cozy with Russia in these deals—before, fortune made, she became all anti-Russian and pro-Western—she is also known on the street as “Putin in a skirt.³”

As one commentator remarks:
In a country with endemic and rather extraordinary corruption—which is really the most important issue for many Ukrainians—Tymoshenko’s best hope may be that Yanukovych has left behind such obvious symbols of his stupid cupidity.⁴  Now, The Economist reckons: “One [clear thing] is that the government is going to be controlled by Yulia Tymoshenko… She has no official post, but Mr [Alexander] Turchinov [speaker of the parliament and acting president] is her right-hand man and Mr [Arseniy] Yastsenyuk [the new Prime Minister] is the leader of her party, Fatherland.” Actually, I think this may be true in the short run, but it’s not a sure bet to last.

The Economist also points out that, behind the public theater on the maidan:
A less visible battle has been going on between various Ukrainian oligarchs and the members of Mr. Yanukovych’s extended family who took their place at the trough. These oligarchs used their money, influence and political fronts to pile on pressure.”⁵The Economist’s analysis is echoed by Denis, a member of the Autonomous Workers Union (a revolutionary syndicalist group) in Kiev, in an interview published in mid-February:

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Since 2010, Viktor Yanukovych, who had initially been just a puppet of powerful oligarchs, has become an ambitious businessman himself. His elder son has accumulated vast powers; “The Family” occupied important positions in the government, monopolized control over capital flows, and started fighting with Rinat Akhmetov, Dmitry Firtash and other oligarchs who had been their sponsors previously. Naturally, the traditional oligarchic clans didn’t like this, so the current protest has also an elite dimension.⁶

Yanukovych, then, is only the nouveauist of the rich oligarchs, squeezing his snout into the trough with “stupid cupidity.” That made him a target of the USDA-approved smartly greedy swine, and a convenient scapegoat to throw under the bus of popular discontent. The Western media won’t be featuring shocked, shocked corruption-morality-play tours of Akhmetov’s, or Firtsah’s, or Tymoshenko’s, personal palaces, in Ukraine and elsewhere, with America’s Top Designers judging how gaudily or elegantly appointed they are.

So, corrupt indeed. Everyone accuses everyone else of corruption, and they are all right. Transparency International ranks Ukraine 144^th (of 177) on its Corruption Perception Index, tied with Nigeria. Corruption is endemic in the Ukraine, and the overthrow of Yanukovych does nothing to overturn that. Even the Rada, now the seat of all power in the new, Yanukovych-free, democratic, Ukraine, is, as The Economist recognizes, “itself the product of this corrupt system, its seats bought and sold by the oligarchs’ factions for years.” So, “a corrupt, cowardly and thuggish president” has been overthrown, “but the post-Soviet order which prevailed in Ukraine over the past two decades has not been uprooted.”

Only in a bizarre—but unfortunately real and elaborate—ideological construct, can a round of oligarchic musical chairs be sold as a victory for “democracy.”

It was the “endemic and extraordinary” corruption, the theft of the wealth of society, that, more than anything else, infuriated the people of Ukraine. The Economist correctly notes that “The oligarchs and their political place-men are creatures of the dysfunctional state that Maidan rejects.”  Yet, it’s the oligarchs—“ultra-wealthy” billionaires with “empires of steel”—who are now being sent to rule over, and soothe/placate their “armies of workers.”  Goodbye, Yanuk, hello, John Galt-ovich.

That anybody thinks billionaire oligarchs are just the ticket to soothe the savage breasts of discontented workers, marks how deeply entrenched capitalist, allied with nationalist, ideologies have become in the post-Soviet states. In Ukraine, and in western Ukraine particularly, Stalin’s crimes gave rise to a nasty strain of nationalism that collaborated with the Nazis during WWII (discussed below). This, combined with a visceral rejection of anything calling itself “socialism,” has led to a hardening of Ukrainian identity in “nationalist” terms, promoted by Ukrainian educational and institutions. As Denis remarks:
[T]he crash of the “real socialism” also brought about the crash of the progressive values which had been officially promoted in that society (atheism, feminism, internationalism). The gap has been promptly filled by the wild mixture of nationalism and conservatism (and New Age charlatan philosophy, for that matter). This shift was eagerly supported by the state ideological apparatus. Actually, in many universities at the beginning of 1990s the departments of “scientific communism” were rebranded into “scientific nationalism”! Later they became the departments of “political science” though.It has also led to a host of illusions, reinforced by the messages of Western mass media, about what’s on offer in the capitalist West:
[Y]ou should understand that from the very beginning people had a very peculiar understanding of “Europe.” They pictured a very utopian ideal – society without corruption, with high wages, social security, rule of law, honest politicians, smiling faces, clean streets etc. – and called it “EU”. And when one tried to tell them that actual EU has nothing to do with this pretty picture, that people there actually burn EU flags and protest against austerity etc. – they retorted: “So would you better live in Russia then?” So, yes, from the very beginning the protest was driven by the false consciousness of “civilizational choice”, by nationalist ideological patterns which didn’t leave any room for the class agenda. These are the results of the bourgeois cultural hegemony, in Gramscian terms, and this is the main problem we should fight in this country over next years (or even decades).

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Capitalism, Socialism, Nationalism: Post-Soviet Confusions

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n their anti-Russian fury and nationalist rejection of “Bolshevik” class politics, people in the maidan may think they’re getting the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, but they’re going to end up with the real homeless of Camden. The Yanukovych regime itself promoted these Europeanist illusions.  Here’s Denis again:

EU hysteria [was] provoked by the government itself! For the whole year 2013 they were constantly talking about how Ukraine is going to sign that agreement with the EU. They’ve roused the expectations of the “pro-European” part of the population, and then, when suddenly they made a U-turn, people were extremely frustrated and angry. That was the initial impulse.Indeed, Yanukovych dug his own grave in many ways, including his attempts to institute the neo-liberal austerity measures that were demanded by the EU deal:
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[T]here are very real reasons for people to hate the government, too. When Yanukovych became president in 2010, he started pushing for unpopular neo-liberal steps. The natural gas tariffs were growing; the government launched medical reform which will eventually lead to closure of many medical institutions and to introducing the universal medical insurance instead of the unconditional coverage [Yanukocare?]; they pushed through extremely unpopular pension reform (raising pension age for women) against the will of more than 90% of population; there was an attempt at passing the new Labour Code which would seriously affect workers’ rights; the railway is being corporatized; finally, they passed a new Tax Code which hit small business. But eventually this assault wasn’t very successful, and the government had to back off. … They saw they can’t move on with such low levels of support. But still, the welfare of the working classes, as well as the general state of the economy leaves much to be desired, and people have all legitimate reasons to demand better living standards. Sadly, these grievances are dressed in the false consciousness of nationalism.

Whatever one thinks of Yanukovych, the idea that, by not signing the EU deal in November, he committed some horrible, treasonous act that compromised Ukraine’s independence, is the opposite of the case. Indeed, as Marilyn Vogt-Downey says, in her excellent analysis, Yanukovych “would have severely dampened enthusiasm for this Agreement,” if he “had summarized the terms of only one part of it—the Agreement’s ‘Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area,’ and explained what it would mean to the Ukrainian people—namely, ”convert[ing] Ukraine into one big ‘free trade zone’, where the anti-environment, anti-labor, and pro-business laws would prevail.” ⁷

He could not, however, because: “during his time in power, he—like all the Ukrainian rulers since Ukraine became independent with the collapse of the USSR in 1992—had already been pursuing measures similar to those the IMF would impose.” So, the popular discontent generated by EU austerity measures led to a popular movement which overthrew Yanukovych, in favor of a government that vows to institute those same EU austerity measures!  Discontent against an unpopular elected president has led to his overthrow in favor of an unelected government whose prime minister says: “I’m going to be the most unpopular prime minister in the history of my country.”⁸

As someone who lives a few blocks from Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, the Ukrainian National Home, the Ukrainian Museum, the Ukrainian-American Youth Association, restaurants named Kiev and Veselka (“probably the most famous Ukrainian restaurant in the world”⁹), whose sister married a Ukrainian-American, and who is a denizen of joints where owners, patrons, and friends are speaking Ukrainian, I humbly submit that: Ukrainians who think the government produced by this insurrection, with the EU-IMF initiative it adopts, is going to solve these problems are confused. This “revolution” is not about making Ukraine more democratic or less corrupt; it is about creating a government whose “main responsibility … will be to carry through a social onslaught against the Ukrainian working class at the behest of international capital.”¹⁰ These measures include the cuts in pensions and crucial fuel subsidies, as well as things like the large-scale fracking deal with Chevron that was announced last week.  Economists predict a 10% collapse in GDP; Greece lost 25% in 5 years with the program the new prime minister wants to emulate [see below]. Rest assured, however: Rimat, Dmitri, and Yulia won’t lose one estate or one hryvnia.

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The new government knows it will have a few months, while everybody’s all warm and cuddly in the afterglow of “democratic revolution,” to inflict the plague of austerity, before popular anger is turned against it. Arseny Yatseniuk, the American-favored prime minister calls it a “kamikaze government.” Oleksandr Turchynov, the president, says: “This government is doomed. Three, four months and they won’t be able to work, because they have to make unpopular decisions.”¹¹

It’s not just wacky socialists who understand things this way. Here’s an excerpt from a Forbes article, cogently titled, ”Washington’s Man Yatsenyuk Setting Ukraine Up For Ruin”:
Vladimir Signorelli, president of boutique investment research firm Bretton Woods Research LLC in New Jersey. “Yatsenyuk is the the kind of technocrat you want if you want austerity, with the veneer of professionalism,” Signorelli said. “He’s the type of guy who can hobnob with the European elite. A Mario Monti type: unelected and willing to do the IMFs bidding,” he said. [Mario Monti is an Italian “technocrat”—i.e., IMF stooge—who brought austerity to Italy.] …Yats had friends in high places and while he does not have strong support of the electorate, and would have no chance of winning an election, he is pro-IMF austerity and apparently the bulk of parliament is as well. “Yatsenyuk was saying that what the Greeks did to themselves we are going to do ourselves,” said Signorelli. “He wants to follow the Greek economic model. Who the hell wants to follow that?”…For economists who think austerity is a disaster, Ukraine is on a path to ruin.

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This ruin is going to compound “the scorched earth economics of capitalist restoration” to which Ukraine has already been subject. Ukraine now boasts the highest maternal mortality rate in Europe, and is the 80th poorest country in the world, (based per capita GDP), behind Iraq and Tonga. Since it became “free” in 1991, 15% of its population has emigrated, its birth rate declined, and its population shrank 11%--classic hallmarks of a moribund and dependent “third-world” social economy.¹²

Along with a lot of other people, Ukrainians need to recognize that the “endemic and extraordinary” corruption of their polity is the necessary prerequisite and inevitable result of the restoration of capitalism—of the shock-therapy transformation of post-Soviet Ukraine into a crony capitalist playground. To turn Ukraine (and the Soviet Union itself) into a capitalist society required the creation of creatures that had not existed: capitalists. It required, that is, transferring the industrial “armies” that constitute the capital wealth of the country from public ownership (however well- or poorly-managed) into the hands of private individuals, who can now own and control the wealth of the country for their private gain above all. (You know, those oligarchs who have managed things so much better over the last twenty years.) The only way to do that was by various forms of semi-disguised theft that handed industries over—i.e., sold them at bargain-basement prices—to various candidates, often functionaries of the old regime, who were likely to be compliant with the foreign capital and capitals that were subsidizing and pushing this whole process—no matter what the cost to ordinary Ukrainians. That’s capitalism.

Isn’t “endemic” corruption a structural feature of capitalism itself? It’s quite common in the capitalist world, I’ve heard, that wealthy billionaires capture the political process, functioning as “what amounts to a shadow government.” You say “oligarch” and I say “plutocrat.” It’s also quite common to think that the problems of capitalism will be solved by better capitalists enforcing more austere capitalism, which will only actually exacerbate inequality, social misery, and corruption itself. Let’s call the whole thing off.

But, again, don’t take a socialist’s word for it. Here’s Bogdan Danilishin, a former minister of economy in Yulia Tymoshenko's government (and a former target of “abuse of power” inquiries himself):
In order to be saved, the Ukrainian economy doesn't need 35 billion dollars or even 135 billion dollars. It will be stolen anyway. They just need to check and evaluate all privatization deals made during the last years. All that has been bought for a reduced price or illegally must be nationalized or the difference must be paid to the state budget. All taxes that oligarchs have been exempt from for the last three years must be paid.¹³

Of course, there’s no chance for such a real reform process. It would require a genuinely democratic re-nationalization that would retrieve the wealth of the country stolen by the oligarchs, and the neo-liberal government installed by this putatively democratic insurrection will never consider that. As one commentator wrote on Investment Watch: “The new government might go after a few oligarchs who ended up on the wrong side of the fence. But those who’d backed the uprising directly or indirectly and who are now backing the new government would be able to hang on to their property, their ill-gotten wealth, and their tax privileges.”¹⁴

You don’t have to be a socialist to recognize the problem. (Only to solve it.) I have to agree with our Ukrainian syndicalist, Denis, that the predominance of what he calls “bourgeois cultural hegemony,” and the displacement of class with nationalist politics, which makes it so difficult for Ukrainians to see what’s happening in these terms, is “the main problem we should fight in this country over next years (or even decades).”  Otherwise, they’ll be rearranging the deckchaise longues of the oligarchs over and over again. Kamikaze revolutions for kamikaze governments.

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Yanukovych was so authoritarian

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ne can certainly say that Yanukovych had authoritarian tendencies, and that they were getting worse. On January 16^th, in the midst of militant anti-government protests that had been going on for two months, he passed a set of harshly repressive anti-protest laws. Predictably, these laws only further inflamed the rebellion, and most of them were repealed or diluted by the parliament on January 28^th. No question that the Interior Ministry police, Berkut, were also brutal in their attempts to break up or limit demonstrations and occupations. Of course, as we’ve seen time and time again, repression – if images thereof are widely broadcast and insistently framed with outrage – only builds popular support for protestors. Protestors’ injuries and deaths only intensified the conflict (particularly the deaths from sniper fire on February 20^th, more on that later), drew more people into what was incontestably a massively popular movement (in Kiev and the western Ukraine, at least), and intensified protestors’ resolve to settle for nothing less than the immediate ouster of Yanukovych.

Whether Yanukovych’s police, and attempted legal, repression was unusually more brutal than that of any president in any country, elected or not, who was besieged by a militant movement, no matter how popular, seeking his immediate deposition, I’ll leave as an open question. What is unusual in this instance is that the protestors fought back, fiercely and from the get-go. They defended their positions, built strong barricades, prepared for battle, armed themselves with everything from makeshift weapon to firearms (as they thought appropriate), and did not hesitate to go on the offensive when they could. Beatings, and bullets, were flying both ways.

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It was a insurrection in which force trumped electoral and constitutional legitimacy

Yale historian Timothy Snyder has taken to Democracy Now and the New York Review of Books as a leading intellectual voice arguing that American liberals should wholeheartedly support the Ukrainian “revolution” and condemn the Russian “invasion” of Crimea.  He likes to portray the maidan movement as a kind of utopian, even classical, space of enhanced dialogue, a place where liberal-minded Americans watching Amy Goodman can feel right at home:
But a maidan now means in Ukrainian what the Greek word agorameans in English: not just a marketplace where people happen to meet, but a place where they deliberately meet, precisely in order to deliberate, to speak, and to create a political society.¹⁵

Pass the talking stick, Plato.

Well, yes, revolutionary uprisings – of which the Paris Commune has been the socialist prototype, after all – are, importantly, that kind of space, the one where people work out how to build a new “political society” with their comrades. They are also, necessarily, this (circa Jan 25^th):

And this (circa Jan 21^st):

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[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n the language of revolution, agora means battlefield.

Do not get me wrong: I do not present these images as dispositive evidence that discredits the maidan protestors. These kinds of forceful actions – not just defensive, but aggressive actions that advance one’s position – are often necessary to fight and win game-changing political battles. It is not I who wants to pretend that revolutionary struggles can and/or must always be won by purely non-violent means. I find the methodical advance of the protestors into the administration building in the first clip quite instructive, for example. Their fierce determination to keep pressing forward, not resorting to firearms as long as the police don’t, but using every makeshift weapon they can get their hands on, stripping the police of their armor and pulling them out of formation until they break ranks and retreat – these people didn’t come out to express themselves; they came to fight and win. Good for them, depending on what they’re fighting for.

As someone who finds it insulting to go to demonstrations in America’s most liberal cities, where protestors are literally penned in like cattle, I’d just like to ask those Americans who have seen what happened to their fellow citizen protestors in Seattle, and Pittsburgh, and Wall Street: If protestors from Zuccotti, or Central, or Lincoln, or Lafayette Park, tried to seize and occupy a nearby civil administration building, exactly how many inches do you think they would advance into that structure, exactly how many cops would they set on fire, before they would have the living shit beaten out of them? Before any means that were necessary to stop them were deployed against them?

And exactly how many words of praise and support would American politicians and media personalities have to say about them?  How many cookies would they be served?

Yes, the Ukranian protestors were protected by their numbers and by their large base of political support, which served to buttress their fierce determination. Mass political strength is a powerful weapon. Still, insistent deployment of near-lethal riot-control agents and technologies (sound cannons, etc.), let alone concentrated lethal firepower from the automatic weapons and tanks of an army, can, at least temporarily, overcome even that. Are the Berkut not as heavily militarized as average American urban police department have become? Was the Yanukovych regime reluctant to employ more heavily militarized police weaponry, or to call on the army – whether out of respect for the people, respect for the political costs, and/or fear that orders would not be followed?  Is there a high horse here that the American regime can ride on?

As the more trenchant intellectual voice of Stephen Cohen puts it:

But let me ask you, if in Washington people throwing Molotov cocktails are marching on Congress—and these people are headed for the Ukrainian Congress—if these people have barricaded entrance to the White House and are throwing rocks at the White House security guard, would President Obama withdraw his security forces?....We wouldn’t permit that in any Western capital, no matter how righteous the cause.¹⁶

Let’s not forget (if by some chance you were ever made aware) that in the final week of confrontation, it was the protest movement, feeling its increasing power, that repeatedly initiated violent confrontations to get immediate satisfaction of their demands.

As the AP reports:

The latest street violence began Tuesday [February 18^th] when protesters attacked police lines and set fires outside parliament, accusing Yanukovych of ignoring their demands to enact constitutional reforms that would once again limit the president's power.¹⁷

By Wednesday evening, a truce was announced, but it:

appeared to have little credibility among hardcore protesters. One camp commander, Oleh Mykhnyuk, told the AP even after the alleged truce, protesters still threw firebombs at riot police on the square. As the sun rose, police pulled back, the protesters followed them and police then began shooting at them, he said.

Who’s on the offensive?

By Thursday, the 20^th, AP cites the Ukrainian Health Ministry as saying that “28 people have died and 287 have been hospitalized this week.” In a slightly earlier report, discussing the theft by protestors of 1500 guns, RT says that at “At least 26 people, including 10 police officers, have been killed and some 800 injured since the start of violent riots in Kiev on Tuesday.”  The AP avoids any mention of police causalities, and avoids any mention of protestors’ firearms. They had them and can be seen here using them.¹⁸

On Thursday, the worst day of violence:

Fearing that a call for a truce was a ruse, protesters tossed firebombs and advanced upon police lines … in Ukraine's embattled capital. Government snipers shot back and the almost-medieval melee that ensued left at least 70 people dead and hundreds injured, according to a protest doctor. ..In addition, one policeman was killed Thursday and 28 suffered gunshot wounds.

Snipers. They seem always to appear at key moments in protests like these, raining sudden and arbitrary death from above – a particularly vicious tactic, certain to infuriate the protestors and harden their resolve. The new Interior Minister has called the sniper shootings “the key factor in this uprising.” Let’s remark that, despite the figure in the AP article, there was more than “one” policemen killed by sniper fire, and, despite the presumption of the AP, as well as of Obama and Kerry, it is not all clear that these were “government” snipers. In fact, according to what Estonian Foreign Minister, Urmas Paet, recounted in a phone conversation with EU foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, "What was quite disturbing, this same Olga [Olga Bogomolets, a doctor on the maidan] told that, well, all the evidence shows that people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides… So there is a stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, it was somebody from the new coalition." “Gosh,” says Ashton. We’ll return to the sniper issue later.¹⁹

Sure enough, this violence catalyzed a political breakthrough, and on Friday, as the AP reported, “a representative from Russia” as well as the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland—met with “the opposition leaders,” then with Yanukovych for five hours, then with opposition leaders again, as US Vice President Joe Biden “placed repeated calls to both Ukrainian negotiating sides.”²⁰As a result of this intense mediation a radical new agreement was worked out that represented the regime’s virtually complete surrender to the opposition’s position. The agreement, which the Russians did not like and “pointedly skipped … signing,” called for a unity government, early elections, a return to the 2004 Constitution, and amnesty for arrested protestors. As Vladimir Putin characterized it, implying his dislike:  “I would like to stress that under that agreement (I am not saying this was good or bad, just stating the fact) Mr Yanukovych actually handed over power… Moreover, he issued orders to withdraw all police forces from the capital, and they complied.”²¹ Even a Russian leftist critic of Putin, who came to the maidan, remarked: “The president even asked the opposition parties to appoint the prime minister.”²² Furthermore, the parliament immediately sealed the deal, enacting laws that would allow for the release of Julia Tymoshenko, curb presidential powers, and make it easier to reverse Yanukovych’s decision about the EU economic agreement that had been the original catalyst for the protests.

And, sure enough, that did not satisfy the protestors either:

Militant anti-government activists in Ukraine on Saturday threatened to storm the president’s palace and shatter a fragile peace deal to end the ex-Soviet country's bloodiest crisis since independence… 

"Elections in December are not enough -- he has to leave now," said 34-year-old Oleh Bukoyenko as he joined 40,000 protesters to hear the peace pact's details announced on the square late Friday….One ultranationalist speaker grabbed the stage on Independence Square late Friday to call on protesters to storm the president's office at 10:00 am (0800 GMT) Saturday should Yanukovych fail to relinquish power overnight.

The call was met with cheers and rounds of applause. Several top opposition leaders meanwhile were booed for signing the compromise agreement allowing Yanukovych to keep his post until snap elections are called by the December deadline….

So, by end of day Saturday, the 22^nd, protestors had taken control of the presidential administration buildings “without resistance,” and Yanukovych had fled.

Let’s put aside for the moment the “content” of this protest and uprising, its ultimate political point and program, and acknowledge the incontrovertible fact that it was an extra-legal, extra-constitutional action that imposed its political will and achieved its one immediate goal – the ouster of Ukraine’s elected President – by force. It succeeded by the force of popular pressure and armed resistance and assault on the streets of Kiev, helped along greatly by international pressure, with no real concern for what was legal or constitutional or electorally legitimate. “Coup” is a perfectly reasonable word for what happened, though, in recognition of its significant popular base, I prefer to call it an “insurrection.”

In Kiev, with the blessing of virtually all the world’s political and media missionaries of capitalist democracy, force trumped elections. This movement deposed a President who had been chosen in a 2010 election that, according to European and NATO observers, “was a good and competitive election and very promising for the future of Ukraine's democracy.” It was an election in which there was “a genuine democratic choice between a large number of candidates,” and “Open access to information about the candidates and their programmes [that] allowed the Ukrainian voters to make a well-founded choice.” It was an election that, as the NATO representative summarized, “the Ukrainian voters won.” Sounds to me like an election that was no less “free and fair” than elections held in these VoterID-Electoral-College-Florida-Ohio-Citizens-United States.²³

In the parliament, Yanukovych’s Party of Regions was “the most widely supported Ukrainian political party…hold[ing] nearly forty percent of the seats in the Rada. No other political party even comes close to holding this type of support in the Ukrainian political landscape or the Rada.”²⁴ Furthermore, this movement deposed a President in defiance of the extant constitutional electoral process that had him facing a new election in less than a year, an election no one had any reason to believe would be less fair than that of 2010 – especially since, as we saw above, the President had effectively ceded all of his effective power before the movement’s final assault. According to the rules of parliamentary democracy, the proper way to get rid of a corrupt and despised elected leader is to vote the bastard out. If Yanukovych were widely despised, and the Kiev opposition widely supported, throughout Ukraine, he could easily have been removed by electoral means. On the other hand, it may not have been quite so easy, and some serious adjustment to the constitutional-electoral order might have been necessary, precisely because the Kiev opposition still has this to contend with this:

Half the country, it seems, may not be so joyful about the new adventure in insurrectionary democracy.

To pretend that the ex-post-facto parliamentary maneuvers that ratified the result of this insurrection actually confer some kind of retroactive constitutional legitimacy on it is ludicrous. As Nicolai Petro points out, these actions were taken by “a Parliament that rules without any representation from the majority party – since most of the deputies of the east and the south of the country are afraid to set foot in Parliament… [and] all across the country, headquarters of parties are being sacked by their opponents,” by a parliament that outlawed the only effective remaining opposition party (the Communists) and that “consolidate[ed] the powers of the speaker of the Parliament and the acting president in a single individual, giving him greater powers than allowed under any Ukrainian constitution,” in a context where “Vigilante militias routinely attack and disperse public gatherings they disapprove of.”²⁵ Please, let’s recognize these parliamentary acts as what they are – the ratification of an insurrection, in defiance of the extant constitutional order. Call them the first steps in a new, post-insurrection constitutional order if you want, but recognize the radical break they represent.

And why not call this what it is?  Isn’t that what revolutionary change is all about – a radical break with the old order? To reprise what I said in a previous post on Egypt: An electoral process can be a thin facade of democracy and, effectively, a tool of disempowerment, justifying militant extra-electoral politics, or even insurrection. A serious revolutionary conjuncture, a real break into a new social order, usually involves both. It’s an unapologetic, forceful, seizure of power that seeks to be definitive and irreversible. (Of course, not every insurrection is a revolution, or even a step forward, but let’s leave that aside for the moment.)

As someone who accepts the revolutionary socialist argument, I do not object to extra-legal, extra-parliamentary, insurrectionary politics per se. And guess what? All the self-proclaimed liberal, conservative, moderate, non-violent, constitutional, parliamentary democratic thinkers, politicians and commentators who are proudly and loudly supporting what happened in Ukraine also do not object to extra-legal, extra-parliamentary, insurrectionary politics per se – they just don’t want to admit it. Like me, they will support an insurrection, depending on what it’s about. Unlike me, they will pretend it wasn’t really an insurrection at all, just another, maybe somewhat “messy,” but fundamentally non-violent, constitutionally-authorized transition within the rules of bourgeois parliamentary democracy.  And that’s because, as the man said: We wouldn’t permit that in any Western capital, no matter how righteous the cause.

It’s quite amusing, until it gets sickening, to watch American leaders—who  cling to the notion that a thin, corrupt, disempowering electoral process legitimizes them—embrace the forceful overthrow of a democratically-elected leader in a functioning parliamentary democracy while insisting they are doing no such thing.

Let’s recognize that virtually nobody really supports or opposes what happened in Ukraine, or anywhere else, because it was an insurrection, but because of what kind of insurrection it was – what it’s explicit and implicit socio-political objective was, what different kind of society and polity it was moving toward creating. And let’s recognize that the US would denounce, and help to crush, any insurrection, no matter how popular or righteous the cause, in which leftist forces played anything close to the prominent fighting role that right-wing, neo-fascist forced played in this one. If revolutionary anarcho-syndicalists had been the vanguard of the maidan, Yanukovych would have been America’s “democratic” hero.

As for “democracy” (along with “nonviolent,” one of the most dishonestly abused words in the American political vocabulary), it certainly does not just mean having an election.  It means power to the people. Neither Ukrainian oligarchs, nor the EU-IMF neo-liberal “technocrats,” nor the American government, nor NATO, want that. They have too much to lose.

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It was a right-wing, imperialist insurrection, powered by fascist groups and permeated with fascist ideology

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he overthrow of Yanukovych was an insurrection accomplished by a political movement that was driven by popular socio-economic discontent and thoroughly imbued by “ultranationalist”—i.e., neo-fascist—ideology.

It was decidedly not a revolution, in the strong sense of the word. A revolutionary insurrection marks the beginning of a change in the social order. This movement did not, will not, and, given its foundations, could not, establish a popular government that will create anything like more widespread prosperity and deeper democracy, let alone a new social order.

It was a regime change, fuelled by popular discontent, powered by neo-fascist militants, and surreptitiously managed by American intelligence diplomats, with Ukrainian oligarchs maneuvering for ultimate control behind the scenes—factions that have different, sometimes internally contradictory, agendas. It will create a government that will be controlled by and benefit some Ukrainian oligarchs at the expense of others, that will benefit European and American capitalism at the (acknowledged, indeed promised!) cost of austerity and immiseration for Ukrainian working people, and that will benefit American and NATO plans for an ever-tightening military encirclement of Russia at the expense of possible war and perpetual tension for Ukraine.

The only possibility for a more serious, “revolutionary” break from neo-liberal standards of oligarchic-imperial rule in the near future would come from the neo-fascist groups, who indeed imagine themselves to have a radically different agenda. But guess what? Faced with any popular uprising against its policies, from the right or the left, the new neo-liberal, Euro-facing, Russia-hating, America-loving, Ukrainian government, and its international supporters, will trot out the bourgeois democratic principles that its leaders, of course, never reallycontravened, and insist, Berkut (by any other name) and all: We won’t permit that in our democratic, European capital, no matter how righteous the cause.

Is there anybody who honestly doubts any of this?

Brendan O’Neill makes the point quite nicely:

For what we have in Ukraine is not revolution, but regime change …As for the word ‘revolution’ … its deployment in Ukraine takes its bastardisation to a new low: there has of course been no replacement of one social order by another in Ukraine, or even the instalment of a people’s government; instead various long-established parties in parliament, some of which are deeply unpopular among certain constituencies in Ukraine, are forming an interim government. Revolutionary? Hardly.The Western debate and coverage … has certainly made externally generated regime change seem revolutionary, and the Western-assisted anti-democratic removal of an elected leader seem like an act of people’s democracy. It has exposed a severe dearth of independent critical thinking among the Western commentariat. …The truth of what has happened in Ukraine is this: the EU and Washington have effectively brought about regime change, replacing an elected pro-Russian regime with an unelected, still-being-formed new government that is more amenable to the institutions of the West.²⁶ 

Regarding the “fascism” question, Max Blumenthal’s Alternet piece, and Per Anders Rudling’s detailed scholarly study are indispensable sources. Rudling understates considerably, when he says: “The far-right tradition is particularly strong in western Ukraine.” The fascist currents in the Kiev movement are undeniable. They are represented in the parliament by the Svoboda (Freedom) Party (originally called the Social National Party). In December, 2012, the European Parliament condemned Svoboda for its “racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views,” and urged other Ukrainian parties “not to associate with, endorse or form coalitions with this party.”²⁷

As Blumenthal notes, Svoboda’s leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, defines his mission as freeing his country from the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.” His deputy, Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn founded a think tank named after a historical figure he admires greatly: The Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center. Svoboda’s – and, unfortunately, much of western Ukraine’s – “nationalism” is embodied in the revered figure of Stepan Bandera, a World War II-era Nazi collaborator who led the pro-fascist Organization of Ukrainian (OUN), which helped to form a Ukrainian division of the Waffen SS to fight with the Nazis against the Soviet Union. From 1942-1944, Yaroslav Stetsko, the “Prime Minister” of ONU-B (Bandera’s wing), who supported “bringing German methods of exterminating Jewry to Ukraine,” oversaw the killing of “more than 90,000 Poles and thousands of Jews” in western Ukraine. Banderists in Lvov circulated a pamphlet telling the city’s Jews: "We will lay your heads at Hitler’s feet.”²⁸

After the war, Bandera’s Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) continued its fascist campaign for “a totalitarian, ethnically pure Europe,” engaging in a futile armed struggle against the Soviet Union, until KGB agents assassinated him in Munich in 1959. Nothing “neo” about this Nazi.

Viktor Yushchenko, the president produced by the last American-supported Ukrainian uprising, the “Orange Revolution,” put the full weight of the ideological apparatus of the Ukrainian state into reinventing the history of Ukrainian complicity with Nazism into a “national liberation” mythology. He “tasked a set of nationalistically minded historians” into “disseminating a sanitized, edifyingly patriotic version of the history of the ‘Ukrainian national liberation movement,’ the leaders of which were presented in iconographic form as heroic and saintly figures, martyrs of the nation.”

Thus, in 2010, against the protestation of the European Parliament—which he accused of having a “historical complex”—Yushchenko awarded Stepan Bandera the title of "Hero of Ukraine."²⁹ As Rudling notes: “There was little protest from intellectuals who identify themselves as liberals.” It was the government of big, bad Yanukovych that later annulled the award.

And thus, still satisfied by their political research, Svoboda led a 15,000-person march in honor of Bandera in Kiev on January 1^st of this year, with chants of “Ukraine above all” and “Bandera, come and bring order!”³⁰

Now, as a result of the insurrection, Svoboda, which won about 10% of the vote in the last election, has effectively muscled the much larger (34% of the last vote) Party of the Regions out of parliament, and seeks nationally to outlaw it and the Communist Party (13% of the vote), whose leader’s house was burned down. With the help of its Right Sector allies, these parties have already been banned in a number of regions. Svoboda now holds “key leadership positions in the parliament and law enforcement, four ministerial portfolios in the new government [including Prosecutor General and Deputy Prime Minister] and several appointed governorships.” Svoboda’s co-fouder, Andriy Parubiy, is head of the National Security & Defense Council of the new, democratic, government of Ukraine.³¹

So, fourteen months after denouncing Svoboda for its “racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia,” European governments are gushing over the new “democracy” in Ukraine over which Svoboda presides. And, as the BBC reports: “Inside the columned central hall of Kiev's city council, an activist base of operations, hung a giant banner with a Celtic cross, a symbol of ‘white power,’ and an American confederate flag….and an immense portrait of Stepan Bandera.”³²

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Keep in mind, too, Rudling’s point that the whole Banderist “national liberation” narrative “was well received in western Ukraine but was received coldly or met open hostility in the eastern and southern parts of the country.”

As Svoboda represents fascism in the parliament, Right Sector (Pravy Sektor) represented fascism in the maidan, and continues to do so with its intimidating tactics in the streets and administrative offices of Kiev and the regions, as well as from its new positions in government. Right Sector is a confederation of far-right groups such as Patriots of Ukraine, the Social-National Assembly, White Hammer, Stepan Bandera’s Trident, and the Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian People's Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO). Their favorite ensign is the wolfsangel--a favorite, too, of the Waffen SS--which was on display all over the maidan:

As Ukrainian journalist Oleg Shynkarenko points out, Right Sector leader, Dmytro Yarosh defines the group's creed thusly: “We are against degeneration and totalitarian liberalism, but we support traditional morals and family values, against the cult of profit and depravity.” Right Sector’s websites rail against the “liberal homodictatorship” of modern Western society.³³ Blumenthal points out that Right Sector is: “linked to a constellation of international neo-fascist parties,” and “through the Alliance of European National Movements (AEMN), Right Sector is promising to lead its army of aimless, disillusioned young men on ‘a great European Reconquest’.”  In some ways, the neo-fascist right does want power to the people—just the morally and ethnically pure people.

BBC did a decent report on the “Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine.”  Again, maybe not so “neo.” The reporter, Gabriel Gatehouse, interviews Svoboda and Right Sector militants, meets a group called C14 (apparently an armed wing of Svoboda) under a portrait of Lenin in the Communist Party headquarters they had taken over, and shows two Svoboda MPs displaying “14” and “88” tokens. These numbers, which are often displayed in combination, and which appeared in graffiti throughout the maidan, have special fascist significance: “14” stands for from the Fourteen Words coined by an American white supremacist: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children” (there’s an alternate version, about “the White Aryan woman”); “88” represents a double of the eighth letter of the Latin alphabet, HH, for Heil Hitler. [I cannot make this stuff up.]

Yes, it depends what you’re fighting for.

My favorite is this 2½-minute tidbit from a young Right Sector gentleman, explaining the group’s, and his, affinity for “National Socialist themes,” and assuring his interviewer that they want a society that’s just “a little bit like” that “under Hitler”:

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NOTE: This video is now "helpfully" accompanied with this Youtube/Google alert:
RT is funded in whole or in part by the Russian government

The leader of the Right Sector, Dmytro Yarosh, is now the deputy head of the National Security Council, and is running for President, of Ukraine’s new, democratic, government.

You might also take a look at this video, where Right Sector leader Aleksandr Muzychko roughs up a local prosecutor to show him who’s the boss now, and threatens to have him lynched: “Shut the fuck up, you bitch! Your fucking time is over… If you think I am goodie because I’ve come without my rifle, you are gravely mistaken. I’ve come with a pistol. There are a few choice videos of Muzychko, who is also identified as a member of the "Wiking" unit of the Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO), another post-Banderist right-wing paramilitary group.

So there’s no question that fascists were part of the insurrection, and there is no question that they were crucial to its success. As Oleg Shynkarenko insists, the scenes of fighting resistance and advance were led by Right Sector and allied groups:

[I]t was the far right that first started to talk back to Yanukovych in his own language. They were the first to throw Molotov cocktails and stones at police and to mount real and well-fortified barricades. They were amongst those who burned two military troop carriers that attacked the barricades on February 18. The Euromaidan won thanks to the resoluteness of people who were ready to fight rather than to negotiate in parliament when any negotiation became pointless.

Nicolai Petro agrees, and points out the political ramifications:

I ascribe a much greater role to the Right Sector…the spearhead of the revolution. … [T]he actual coup was accomplished thanks to the armed intervention of extreme nationalists, led by the Right Sector. And the fact that they were so instrumental in accomplishing this change of power has put them in the driver’s seat. From now on, whatever political decisions are arrived at will really be at the sufferance of the Right Sector.

Let’s be clear, also, that these neo-fascist groups not only fought and defeated Yanokovych’s police, they attacked and drove away any political group from the left that tried to establish a presence in the maidan. The fascists made sure they controlled the radical politics of the square. Sascha, a member of AntiFascist Action Ukraine, a group that monitors and fights fascism in Ukraine, recounts in an interview published in mid-February:

A group of 100 anarchists tried to arrange their own self-defense group, different Anarchist groups came together for a meeting on the Maidan. While they were meeting a group of Nazis came in a larger group, they had axes and baseball bats and sticks, helmets, they said it was their territory. They called the Anarchists things like Jews, blacks, Communists. There weren’t even any Communists, that was just an insult. The Anarchists weren’t expecting this and they left. People with other political views can’t stay in certain places, they aren’t tolerated.³⁴

And Mira, of the same group, adds:

One of the worst things is that Pravy has this official structure. They are coordinated. You need passes to go certain places. They have the power to give or not give people permission to be active. We’re trying to be active but we have to avoid Nazis, and I’m not going to ask a Nazi for permission!...

Early on a Stalinist tent was attacked by Nazis. One was sent to the hospital. Another student spoke out against fascism and he was attacked.

Pravy Sektor got too much attention after the first violence, the media gave them popularity and they started to think they’re cool guys. Pravy existed before but now it’s growing and attracting a lot of new people. 

 

Ilya Budraitskis, a Russian Socialist who came to the maidan in January, tells ushow the “ultranationalists” brutalized and evicted everyone from leftish Europhiles to anarchists:

Another part of the left repetitively tried to join the movement, even after they were repetitively kicked out of it. Some of the “euro-enthusiastic” leftists came to Maidan in November with red (instead of blue) flag of the EU, with banners for free healthcare and education, and with feminist slogans. They were brutally attacked by Nazis. Then there was an episode when the far-right attacked the tent of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine near the Maidan. A man on the stage said that there were some “provocateurs” and said that “men know what to do”; as a result, a mob of Nazis has broken ribs of the trade union activists, tore their tent with knives and stolen their property. The victims hadn’t been doing anything “leftist” per se, but they were members of the left movement, known to their political adversaries, and that was enough….

[T]here is also another group of people who are often confused with the radical left. …who call themselves anarchists but actually have a very conservative political agenda full of machismo and xenophobia. After the protests have begun, they shifted to the right dramatically; they reached truce with the nazi groups and showered Molotov cocktails at the police together. Eventually, they parted ways with left movement finally.

A week ago they, together with some actual leftists who wanted to “act”, decided to form an “anarchist sotnia [defense unit]” in the Maidan self-defence. In order to do that, they were prepared to give an oath to [Svoboda leader] Andriy Parubiy. But when they formed their ranks to do this, they were met by approximately 150 Svoboda fighters with baseball bats and axes. The fascists accused them of being racially impure and politically irrelevant and forced them out of Maidan.³⁵

So much for Professor Snyder’s agora.

Of course, the great majority of the people in the square are not fascists, but, for all the reasons of history and ideology discussed above, a lot of people in western Ukraine are susceptible to their charms. As Denis, from Kiev Autonomous Workers Union says: “[I]n the long run the rightist political hegemony is being reinforced,” because “That’s what happens when you don’t have a developed left movement and your liberals are too corrupt and ugly!” Here’s how he describes the rightward political momentum on the maidan:

[Far right] ideology has really become more acceptable in the mainstream (which had initially been leaning to the right!). ... Of course, most protesters really say they want political pluralism, bourgeois democracy. … But at the same time the crowd at the Maidan revives some deeply buried pre-modern, medieval social practices like whipping post, lynching, reinforced traditional gender roles. This scary readiness to slip into barbarism is born from the general disenchantment with parliamentary politics and the ubiquitous nationalist mythology about the golden past, imposed in schools and media.

The original Euromaidan agenda in November was a right liberal one, standing for the EU, “economic liberties” and bourgeois democracy. But even then the issues of multiculturalism, LGBT rights, workers’ rights and freedoms were severely repressed by the politically conscious far-right activists … [whose] political programme had always included critique of the EU’s “liberal fascism”. … The attackers didn’t represent the majority of protesters, but the majority was very susceptible to their political agenda which they had been aggressively pushing through…

[P]eople are new to politics, they just “know” they are rightists and nationalists. And therefore they trust the more politically experienced leaders to express their views and formulate their programme for them. It just so happens that those leaders are nationalists or even Nazis. And they shift the centre of the political discourse even further to the right.

But, first of all, their ideas are welcome among the apolitical crowd; second of all, they are very well organized, and also people love their “radicalism”. An average Ukrainian worker hates the police and the government but he will never fight them openly and risk his comfort. So he or she welcomes a “vanguard” which is ready to fight on their behalf; especially if that vanguard shares “good” patriotic values….And since the basic “common sense” had long ago been established on the nationalist fundamental assumptions, the radicalization goes only further in that direction.³⁶

As we all know, fascists don’t have to be a majority to determine outcomes, and their power to do so can increase very quickly under favorable conditions. Perhaps the most telling, and disturbing remark of the leftists cited in these interviews was this, from Sascha of AntiFascist Action Ukraine, a couple of weeks before the head of Right Sector became deputy head of the National Security and Defense Council: “If Pravy [Right Sector] has positions in a new government that would be really dangerous but that isn’t possible, they aren’t powerful enough.”

Oh, yes they are. Consider the stunning turn of events we have just witnessed: “the ascension of a genuinely fascist mass movement into the corridors of power” in a European country for the first time since WWII, greeted with a stunning non-chalance—nay, embraced as an exemplar of democracy—by the Western liberal democracies. University of Ottawa political scientist Ivan Katchanovski specifies: “The paramilitary right sector has de facto power at least in some Western Ukrainian regions,” and “The far right in Ukraine has now achieved the level of representation and influence that is unparalleled in Europe.”³⁷

Then imagine, please, Professor Katchanovski’s last sentence with “left” substituted for “right,” and consider how unthinkable it is that any American government would be so welcoming of such a “democratic” outcome. The United States and its allied liberal democracies are, in other words, willing to accommodate very hard swings to the right in order to secure and/or extend the neo-liberal capitalist, and US/NATO imperialist, order, but will abide not an inch of movement toward resistance from the left—no matter how righteous or democratic the cause.

The “liberal-nationalist” alliance, the American role, and what it portends

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]ight we interrupt the rejoicing over the rebirth of democracy in Ukraine to ask: Have the US and European governments given a thought to how their embrace of a government including Svoboda and Right Sector in Ukraine implicitly legitimizes and emboldens the far-right and neo-Nazi movements in Britain, and France, and Sweden, et. al.?  Because those movements have.³⁸  Ukraine now has a government that is, as Eric Draitser puts it, “essentially a collaboration between pro-EU liberals and right wing ultra-nationalists.” Israel Shamir is on to something, when he remarks that “a union of [right-wing] nationalists and liberals” has become “the trademark of a new US policy in the Eastern Europe.” As he reminds us: “[L]iberals do not have to support democracy. They do so only if they are certain democracy will deliver what they want. Otherwise, they can join forces with al Qaeda as now in Syria, with Islamic extremists as in Libya, with the Army as in Egypt, or with neo-Nazis, as now in Russia and the Ukraine.”³⁹ Or, as Pepe Escobar puts it:

Everyone remembers the "good Taliban", with which the U.S. could negotiate in Afghanistan. Then came the "good al-Qaeda", jihadis the US could support in Syria. Now come the "good neo-nazis", with which the West can do business in Kiev. Soon there will be "the good jihadis supporting neo-nazis", who may be deployed to advance U.S./NATO and anti-Russian designs in Crimea and beyond.⁴⁰ 

Lest one think this is a fanciful compilation, be aware that Right Sector leader and new deputy head of the National Security and Defense Council, Dmitry Yarosh, has called upon Caucasian jihadi, Doku Umarov, to “support Ukraine now,” “to activate his fight” against Russia, and “take a unique chance to win.” Doku Umarov calls himself ‘Emir of the Caucasus Emirate’. He has claimed responsibility for attacks that killed dozens of Russian civilians—including the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings and the 2011 Domodedovo International Airport bombing. He is on the UN Security Council’s Al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions list, and the US government has a posted a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.⁴¹

It does get confusing. The frenemy of my frenemy, or something like that.

This has become a formula, and a favorite part of it involves street protests that begin as democratically-inspired movements against corruption and/or authoritarianism, and turn sharply violent when the standard scenario of water-cannon and tear-gas police repression vs. rock- and Molotov-throwing protestors gets brutally escalated by something like….snipers.

Snipers are a vicious weapon. I think whoever is responsible for their use in the maidan protests deserves the world’s condemnation. I also know that nobody knows who is responsible, and no one should accept the pure assumption that they were “government” snipers.  The leaked Estonian foreign minister’s phone call, mentioned above, which raised the “stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers ...was somebody from the new coalition,” has cast widespread doubt on the “government sniper” assumption.

According to the AP, the new Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov, asserts: "I can say only one thing: the key factor in this uprising, that spilled blood in Kiev and that turned the country upside down and shocked it, was a third force…And this force was not Ukrainian." Commanders of police sniper units have denied receiving orders to shoot anyone, and the new Deputy Interior Minister seems to believe them. Imputing a rather complicated motive, he thinks the sniper shooting were “intended to generate a wave of revulsion so strong that it would topple Yanukovych and also justify a Russian invasion.” The new Health Minster thinks Russian special forces were involved.⁴²

An American analyst, on the other hand, claims that, “According to veteran US intelligence sources, the snipers came from an ultra-right-wing military organization known as Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO).”⁴³

One might also keep in mind the hacked emails of opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko, leaked by Anonymous Ukraine (or Russian intelligence), discussing plans for “destabilization,” “radical escalation,” and the arrival of “colleagues” whose “services may be required”:

“Our American friends promise to pay a visit in the coming days, we may even see [Victoria] Nuland or someone from the Congress.”  12/7/2013 

“Your colleague has arrived ….his services may be required even after the country is destabilized.” 12/14/2013 

“I think we’ve paved the way for more radical escalation of the situation.  Isn’t it time to proceed with more decisive action?” 1/9/2014⁴⁴

Every scenario is crazy in one way or another, including the one in which the Yanukovych government, ignoring all the clear lessons of recent history regarding the effects of sniper fire during protests, stupidly thought that killing protestors and policemen would calm the waters. I hope those who are responsible for the sniper attacks are identified and punished, and I do not rule out any possibility. The Russians claim to want the same thing, and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has called for a full OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) investigation, which Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin insists, would draw "a completely different picture …compared to what is being depicted by American media.” Let’s see if there is a real investigation, and who will support it. In the meantime, we should remember the Syrian chemical attack, and refuse any argument for aggressive action based on a false assertion of certainty about who is responsible for this.⁴⁵

Let’s also take a look at the role of the US in the Ukranian liberal-“ultra-nationalist” alliance, keeping in mind what I said above about all the actors in this drama having different, sometimes clashing, and sometimes internally contradictory, agendas.

The point is not that the US controlled everything in the Ukrainian uprising. It does not control as much as it thinks, and, as we’ve seen repeatedly, it often gets surprised when it gets what it asked for. It already has been surprised in this case, as we’ll discuss below. But the US, especially when acting in concert with its allies, can significantly affect the course and outcome of events. It has enormous powers, and uses them relentlessly, in public and private, to get what it wants. Not least of these powers is its ability, through its influence on ubiquitous Western media outlets, to withhold and confer a sense of legitimacy. It did just that in Ukraine, with considerable success. Brendan O’Neill makes the incontrovertible point:

The regime change that occurred [in Ukraine] would have been unthinkable without something else, without an additional force - outside pressure. .. 

[Western governments] both undermined the legitimacy of the Yanukovich regime and conferred political and moral authority on to the protest camps. They did this firstly through issuing statement after statement over the past three months about the out-of-touchness of Yanukovich,… and secondly through imbuing the protest camps effectively with the right to rule Ukraine. The camps were visited by leading European and American politicians, who told the protesters theirs was a ‘just cause’ and that they have ‘a very different vision for the country’ to Yanukovich – a better one, of course. The consequence of such ‘mediation’ (meddling) was to isolate Yanukovich and embolden the protesters, creating the space for anti-Yanukovich politicians to manoeuvre themselves into positions of power.

Let’s recall the name of arch-neocon Victoria Nuland (wife of arch-neocon Robert Kagan), Assistant US Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, whose leaked “Fuck the EU!” conversation with the American ambassador in Ukraine brought her out of the shadows as the behind-the-scenes point person for US management of the Ukrainian “revolution.”

In December, 2013, after her third trip to Ukraine in five weeks (including the one where she passed out cookies to maidan protestors), Nuland reminded ameeting of the International Business Conference that the US “had ‘invested’ more than $5 billion and ‘five years worth of work and preparation’ in achieving what she called Ukraine’s ‘European aspirations.’” She also said she “made it ‘absolutely clear’ to Yanukovych that the US required “immediate steps” …to ‘get back into conversation with Europe and the IMF.’” As Renee Parsons puts it, it was “As if [Nuland was] intent on providing incontrovertible evidence of US involvement in Ukraine.”⁴⁶

In regard to the leaked phone conversation, American media focused on the Nuland’s salty language, but the more important substantive point of her remarks, as Peter Lee points out, “was that Nuland was calling for the EU to be sidelined because it was not being sufficiently aggressive on the issue of threatening pro-Russian figures with sanctions.” She also wanted the more popular Vitalyi Klitschko and Svoboda leader Oleh Tiahnybok to step aside and allow the more “economically experienced” (i.e., IMF-friendly) Arsenyi Yatsenyuk take the leading role in the new Ukrainian government. She also specifies the supporting role the UN is being assigned.  She got everything she asked for.⁴⁷

Nobody who hears this tape can credibly deny that the United States, through Nuland, was intimately involved in micro-managing the outcome of this independent, nationalist, Ukrainian movement:

Yats is the guy that who’s got the economic experience the governing experience he’s the… what he needs is Klitsch and Tiahnybok on the outside he needs to be talking to them four times a week you know.  

Ok. He’s now gotten both [Dutch diplomat Robert] Serry and Ban ki-Moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday. That would be great I think to help glue this thing and to have the UN help glue it and, you know, fuck the EU. 

But anyway we could land jelly side up on this one if we move fast.⁴⁸ [all quotes from Nuland]

Throughout the crisis, the US was pushing hard for the EU to take punitive measures against the Ukrainian government, and to impose sanctions on its key officials and oligarchical backers.  Peter Lee describes Nuland’s strategy as an effort “to remove the initiative in Ukraine negotiations out of the hands of Germany and the EU.” He speculates—reasonably, I think—that this had to do with accommodating the American military, as well as the neo-liberal economic, agenda: “Victoria Nuland, in allegiance to her neo-con roots, aggressively facilitated a government that was simultaneously pro-US, anti-Russian, and non-EU-oriented and would therefore see no problem with facilitating a cherished US objective—evicting the Russian Black Sea Fleet from Crimea.” The Germans were certainly pissed off about the high-handed American attitude.⁴⁹

So the Americans may have been attempting a delicate triangulation, in which the hard anti-Russian sentiment of the ultranationalist Ukrainian right was instrumental for their military agenda, without being so obvious as to lose any support of less confrontational Euro-liberal parties.

But they may have been too clever by a third.

Let’s put aside for a moment the fact that Russia saw what was going on, and acted pre-emptively to stop it. The scent of brewing trouble between Ukrainian neo-fascists and their cosmopolitan patrons in the Euro-American politico-economic elite wafts forth from Right Sector’s rejection of the “cult of profit and depravity” as well as what the English captions of their video clumsily describe as “any integrations on terms that dictates not Ukraine.” The Ukrainian right, embodied in both Svoboda and Right Sector, is, after all, ultra-nationalist, and has a very good idea of the national serfdom that awaits Ukraine in the EuroAmerican-IMF neo-liberal global village. Ukrainian rightists, too, are ready to say “Fuck the EU!” They want Ukraine to be a strong, morally and ethnically pure, a brick in the wall of the GRE—the Great European Reconquest.

As Jack Rasmus points out, however:

Both the EU and USA want reliable (and pliable) capitalist politicians in Parliament and the Ukrainian government. That means politicians who will follow their economic policies and integrate the Ukraine into the western economic orbit. In other words, politicians that respond correctly when threats to freeze their personal assets in Switzerland and Luxembourg are raised, as has been the case in the days immediately preceding February 20. 

The west’s gamble is their hope they can exclude the radical, ultranationalist and proto-fascist forces on the ground that served as the battering ram to bust down the door of the Yanukovych regime; or at least minimize their influence in the government. But that task that will not prove so easy, they may find.⁵⁰

The far-right has its claws deep in the new political order in Ukraine. After all, it considers that it has the right to rule. It may not be so easy to co-opt or push aside, and it is capable of causing a lot of trouble.

Of course, the more astute neo-fascist leaders will make various purring sounds to persuade their anxious Euro-American patrons that they can play nice. Thus, as Blumenthal recounts, Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok—eager to deflect any notion that their anti-“Muscovite Jew” Banderist ideology has anything to do with anti-Semitism, and knowing that there’s no better way to please the American government than to show one’s belly to Israel—recently hosted the Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine. In what, for those who have a “historical complex,” is one of the saddest of ironic moments, Tyahnybok appealed for solidarity thusly: “I would like to ask Israelis to also respect our patriotic feelings… Probably each party in the [Israeli] Knesset is nationalist. With God’s help, let it be this way for us too.” Birds of an ultranationalist feather, and all.⁵¹

The showdown will likely come, however, over whether the neo-fascist right will be tame enough to roll over for the IMF-friendly neo-liberal oligarchs and their political henchpersons. To prepare for the eventualities, the US and friends will want to shower the interim government with beefed-up police equipment and training, in order to make sure that no street protest can get anywhere near the traction of the maidan of the last few months. You know, to protect the now-democratic (unelected) government against an undemocratic popular insurrection.

On the other hand, as Julie Hyland reports, the far-right is now entrenching control of its own national military force, in the form of a 60,000-strong National Guard, “recruited from ‘activists’ in the anti-Russian protests and from military academies.” This force was just established by the Ukrainian parliament, and will be overseen by Svoboda’s own Andriy Parubiy.⁵² Ukraine’s neo-fascist right may have been a tad too well nourished on Victoria’s baked goods, and the US’s neo-liberal plans may not get swallowed so easily. These guys are ready to fight. They may be inclined to be independent of, and resistant to, an EU-IMF agenda. The Russian reaction in the Crimea has already taken the US off-guard, and the new armed forces of the Ukrainian right can now create a lot of trouble throughout the Ukraine, which could provoke the wider conflict with Russia that they are itching for, and that Europe, and even the US, can ill afford.

I’ve got no happy ending. As I said above, possible war and perpetual tension is what’s in store for Ukraine. And America’s cookies may land jelly-side down.

Russia and Crimea

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] hold no love for Russia under Putin, although I do not consider him the comic-book villain he is now being cast as. Russia has its own problems with post-Soviet oligarchic capitalism and a confused nationalist mythology. The re-annexation of Crimea is a dangerous gambit, and arguably, but not certainly (see below), in contravention of international law. Nothing here to celebrate.

It’s also true that, in this situation, the US is being hoisted on its own petard of utter disregard for what I previously called “the carefully-constructed and delicate post-war architecture of international law and institutions.” It’s the United States (along with its ward state, Israel) that has routinely ignored issues of national sovereignty and international law, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, over decades—and has suffered no sanction for doing so. Its actions, more than anything else, have rendered the always-fragile construct of international law practically a dead letter. You can’t bomb and/or invade Lebanon, Cuba, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Serbia, Iraq, Libya, et. al., to install your favored government (all but one thousands of miles from your territory), and then stand in politico-moral judgement over another country’s incursion into and recapture of a contiguous region that had been part of its national territory until 1954.

Especially when that happens with the consent of ithe people in that territory, and without a single casualty. Neither the Russians, who lost 20 million people to fascism in WWII, nor the Crimeans (Crimea being part of Russia at the time), have any mythologized confusions about fascist historical heroes, or any reason not to fear and reject the resurgent fascism at the door. Western countries, in fact, could use a little of that anxiety.

In the global context they have created, American leaders can’t think they’ll be taken seriously when they say: “You just don’t in the 21st Century behave in 19th Century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext.”

Furthermore, US foreign policy since the fall of the Soviet Union has been particularly contemptuous of Russia. Bush I promised Mikhail Gorbachev that the US would not expand NATO to take in the Eastern European and Baltic states, and he, Clinton, and Bush II proceeded to do just that. They took it for granted that Russia—under the leadership of their corrupt and drunken stooge, Yeltsin, and economically devastated by the American-led shock-therapy restoration of capitalism—could do nothing.  With his war on Russia's close ally, Serbia, Bill Clinton (proving that NATO never was a defensive alliance) announced that, henceforth, NATO was free to attack any country on Earth--its concept of right trumping the United Nations process and all other notions of international law; he, too, presumed Russia could do nothing about it. In Libya, the US lied to get the Russians (and Chinese) to vote for a “humanitarian” mission, and then blatantly disregarded the terms of the UN resolution and bombed the crap out of Libya for the purpose of “regime change”—assuming Russia could do nothing about it. G. W. Bush and Obama have pushed NATO forward more aggressively, and moved to station “missile defenses” in Eastern Europe that everyone with half a brain, and certainly Russia, knows are weapons designed to enable US first-strike capability—taking for granted that Russia could do nothing about it.

Well, today, in Crimea, Russia—which has every reason to suspect US/NATO plans for Ukraine and for its only warm-water port—can do something about it. It’s not something very nice, but nor is it a hundredth as destructive as what the United States has been doing, or certainly would do in the same circumstance.  Putin can cite the Obama administration’s own statement to the UN International Court on Kosovo:

“Declarations of independence may, and often do, violate domestic legislation. However, this does not make them violations of international law.” End of quote.  They wrote this, disseminated it all over the world, had everyone agree and now they are outraged. Over what? The actions of Crimean people completely fit in with these instructions, as it were.⁵³

And he can then go all Victoria Nuland on the US. There’s really nothing the US can do, or even credibly say, about it. Fortunately, nobody has the stomach for war.

Like a lot of us, the Russians may have thought something else was possible after the break-up of the Soviet Union. But, for the past twenty-some years, the United States was content to ignore international law, and re-create that Great Power world in which one country could invade another country on completely trumped-up pretext—because it took for granted that it was the only Great Power.

No happy ending, for Americans or Ukrainians. It’s a very dangerous world we now live in; somebody could get the stomach. It was Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama who created this world. The Russians have only decided they’re going to live in it. And so will we all.

_________________________________
[See follow-up post on Ukraine developments at: Good for the Gander:Ukraine's Demise Accelerates.]

[Updated on 8/3/2014 to correct some pronoun inconsistencies.]

See also: Democrats Promote Lies and War To Attack Trump

Notes and Links, and Coda

Ukraine Turns to Its Oligarchs for Political Help - NYTimes.com

² Yulia Tymoshenko is back centre stage in Ukraine – but not all want her there | World news | The Guardian

³Ukrainian Protesters See Too Many Familiar Faces in Parliament After Revolution - NYTimes.com  

⁴The Dubious Businees of Ukraine President Yanukovych and His Clan - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Christopher Dickey, Yulia Tymoshenko: She's No Angel, Daily Beast

⁵Ukraine: The February revolution | The Economist

⁶Ukraine: The left and the movement to overthrow Yanukovich: two interviews | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, reposted from Pratele Komunizace

⁷Whither Ukraine? » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

⁸Washington’s Man Yatsenyuk Setting Ukraine Up For Ruin, Forbes.com

⁹The Restaurant Veselka Is a Beacon for Ukrainian Immigrants - NYTimes.com

¹⁰Julie Hyland, What the Western-backed regime is planning for Ukrainian workers - World Socialist Web Site

¹¹Economist, op. cit.

¹²Hyland, op. cit.

¹³Valentin Mândrăşescu,  ’Western financial aid won’t save Ukraine’ – former minister of economy - The Voice of Russia

¹⁴Wolf Richter Aid For The Ukraine “Will Be Stolen” – Former Ukrainian Minister Of Economy | InvestmentWatch

¹⁵Timothy Snyder, Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine | The New York Review of Books

¹⁶A New Cold War? Ukraine Violence Escalates, Leaked Tape Suggests U.S. Was Plotting Coup | Democracy Now!

¹⁷Medic: At least 70 protesters killed in Kiev - Yahoo News

¹⁸LiveLeak.com - Ukrainian protesters with guns caught on tape

¹⁹Ukraine crisis: bugged call reveals conspiracy theory about Kiev snipers | World news | The Guardian

²⁰Militants threaten to shatter fragile Ukraine truce - Yahoo News

²¹ Vladimir Putin Talks To Reporters About Ukraine – Information Clearing House

²²Ukraine: The left and the movement to overthrow Yanukovich: two interviews | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

²³Ukraine’s presidential election meets most international commitments - Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights

²⁴Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya,  The Road to Moscow Goes Through Kiev: A Coup d’Etat That Threatens Russia | Global Research 

²⁵A Coup or a Revolution? Ukraine Seeks Arrest of Ousted President Following Deadly Street Protests | Democracy Now!

²⁶Ukraine: This Isn’t A Revolution – It’s Regime Change

²⁷Max Blumenthal, Is the U.S. Backing Neo-Nazis in Ukraine? | Alternet

"The Return of the Ukrainian Far Right: The Case of VO Svoboda," in Ruth Wodak and John E. Richardson (eds.) Analyzing Fascist Discourse: European Fascism in Talk and Text (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 228-255. | Per Anders Rudling - Academia.edu

Nicolai N. Petro, Threat of Military Confrontation Grows in Ukraine | The Nation

²⁸Blumenthal, Petro, and Justin Raimondo, A Monster Reawakens: The Rise of Ukrainian Fascism -- Antiwar.com

²⁹ Yushchenko: European Parliament has ‘historical complex’ with respect to Bandera

³⁰15,000 Ukraine nationalists march for divisive Bandera

A lot of Ukrainians like to convince themselves that, as one of the January demonstrators insisted, "Bandera never was on the Germans' side," and that he was just about national independence. They’ll cite the fact that he was imprisoned by the Germans in 1941, when his faction of the OUN (OUN-B) “came to control the OUN's Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and declared an independent Ukrainian state … as a satellite of Nazi Germany,” which apparently was a little too assertive (or perhaps oxymoronic) for the Germans.  But Bandera was back in German favor by 1944, and actually “set up a headquarters in Berlin and oversaw the training of Ukrainian insurgents by the German army.” Bandera’s “younger and more radical” OUN faction (ONU-B) was somewhat more ambivalent about the Ukrainian Waffen SS division than the “older, more moderate” (OUN-M) of Andriy Melnyk, but the ONU-B “did not interfere in i[the division’s] formation and once the division was formed it sent some of its members, a number of whom would obtain prominent positions.” Both factions of the ONU “were enthusiastically committed to a new fascist Europe.” And it was the UPA, under Bandera’s “top deputy and acting ‘Prime Minister,’” Yaroslav Stetsko, that “killed tens of thousands of Poles in 1942-44.” The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists portrayed Russians, Poles, Hungarians and Jews — most of the minorities in western Ukraine — as aliens and encouraged locals to destroy “Poles and Jews.” All this goes to show is that Bandera was as ardently racist and anti-Semitic as he was nationalist. Ukrainians who imagine that Bandera was not an outright fascist are kidding themselves. It’s a little like believing that Confederate statesmen weren’t really racists, just proponents of “states’ rights.” Read the Per Anders Rudling article to get the full flavor of it.

The French were responsible for a vicious imperial occupation of Vietnam. Nonetheless, when given the easy opportunity, Ho Chi Minh did not confuse an alliance with Japanese “fellow-Asian” imperialism with a worthy strategy for Vietnamese nationalism. Stalin’s many horrible crimes committed against Ukraine (at the same time he was murdering thousands of Russian revolutionaries) are no excuse for a nationalism that wants to lay the heads of Jews, and prostrate itself, at Hitler’s feet.

For a taste of the US partnership with Ukrainian fascists, see the recent interview with Russ Bellant, "Seven Decades of Nazi Collaboration: America's Dirty Little Ukraine Secret," based on his 1991 book, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party: Domestic fascist networks and their effect on U.S. cold war politics. [Reference added 5 May 2014]

³¹Nazemroaya, op. cit., and Brian Becker, Who’s Who in Ukraine’s New “Semi-fascist” Government: Meet the People the U.S. and EU are Supporting | Global Research]

³²BBC News – Ukraine's revolution and the far right

³³Oleg Shynkarenko,  Can Ukraine Control Its Far Right Ultranationalists? - The Daily Beast

³⁴An Interview with Mira, Andrei, and Sascha of AntiFascist Action Ukraine

³⁵Ukraine: The left and the movement to overthrow Yanukovych: two 

interviews | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

³⁶Ibid.

³⁷Shynkarenko, op. cit.

³⁸ Michael Moynihan, Neo-Nazis Pour Into Kiev - The Daily Beast, and Raimondo, op.cit.

³⁹Eric Draitser,  Ukraine, Intervention, and America’s Doublethink » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names  Israel Shamir: The Brown Revolution of the Ukraine

⁴⁰Ukraine Now Headed by Fascists and Neo-Nazis | Alternet

⁴¹Ukraine nationalist leader calls on “most wanted” terrorist Umarov “to act against Russia” — RT News

We must add to the list Venezuela, where US liberal and conservative politicians and media—in the name of “democracy,” of course—are supporting another bunch of right-wing street fighters attempting to overthrow a government that they have failed to dislodge in election after election.  Garry Leech, Behind the Lies About Venezuela’s Protests » CounterPunch, and Suren Moodliar, No Middle Road on Venezuela » CounterPunch

⁴²Russia, Ukraine feud over sniper carnage - Yahoo News

⁴³F. William Engdahl, Ukraine: Secretive Neo-Nazi Military Organization Involved in Euromaidan Sniper Shootings | Global Research  

⁴⁴Anonymous Ukraine releases Klitschko e-mails showing treason - News - World - The Voice of Russia

⁴⁵Russia calls for OSCE probe into Kiev sniper deaths - Yahoo News Russia, Ukraine feud over sniper carnage - Yahoo News 

⁴⁶Renee Parsons, Chronology of the Ukrainian Coup » CounterPunch

⁴⁷Peter Lee, Skullduggery in Ukraine | Counterpunch

⁴⁸Washington’s Objective: Install a Political Puppet in Ukraine, “F— the EU” says Victoria Nuland in Leaked Tape | Global Research

⁴⁹Germans not amused by Victoria Nuland gaffe - The Washington Post

⁵⁰The Ukraine Economic Crisis » CounterPunch

⁵¹Israel Hayom | Israeli ambassador holds friendly meeting with notorious anti-Semite, and Blumenthal, op. cit.. And try this for crazy: Israeli militia commander fights to protect Kiev | The Times of Israel “Delta, a Ukrainian-born former IDF soldier, heads a force of 40 men and women, most of whom are not Jewish, against gov’t forces."

⁵²Hyland, op. cit.

⁵³Address by President of the Russian Federation - Putin Slams West, Calls For End to ‘Cold War Rhetoric’

Coda

Mr. Jelly Roll Baker, Can I please be your slave? 

I couldn't help thinking about this, my favorite (Tom Rush) version of the Lonnie Johnson song “Jelly Roll Baker.” “Jelly Roll” is a well-known blues trope, that’s used to refer to either the male and female genitalia—an apt coda, I think, for all that's represented in the supremely dickish discourse of Victoria “Jelly-Side” Nuland. (See also: Lacan, “phallic mother.”). 

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The US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), a key nuclear-strategy document that was issued on February 2nd by US Secretary of Defense James Mattis, seems to have benefited from last-minute changes that had been made to it. But it’s still extremely dangerous for the entire world, as will be fully explained here.

One key issue on which a change was made was whether the US would lower the threshold for introducing nuclear weapons into a conflict.

Princeton scholar Bruce Blair somehow saw an earlier draft of the NPR, and he headlined, in the normally neoconservative — but not this time; instead they published his warning against Trump’s going too far into neoconservatism — Washington Post, on January 13th, headlined “A new Trump administration plan makes nuclear war likelier”; and Blair managed to report, in that neoconservative medium, that the then-draft NPR included the passage:

“The United States would only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States, its allies, and partners. Extreme circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks. Significant non-nuclear strategic attacks include, but are not limited to, attacks on the US, allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure.”

Blair criticized this:

Alarmingly, the wizards have uprooted the nuclear taboo and deluded themselves into believing that nuclear weapons are far more usable than previous presidents held. In a single ill-conceived stroke, they have expressed a readiness to go nuclear first in a conflict with Russia or others that had not yet crossed the nuclear Rubicon. This is needless because the United States possesses ample conventional strength to repulse Russian aggression, and reckless because all it accomplishes is increasing the risk of blundering into a nuclear war.

The tech-journalist Jessica Conditt, on January 31st, two days prior to the NPR’s public release, picked up on Professor Blair’s article (without noting, however, where she had obtained her information on it) and wrote:

The draft takes its cue from the 2010 NPR when it says, copied verbatim, "The United States would only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States, its allies, and partners." However, the updated [she doesn’t indicate that this was ‘updated’ as of January 13th] version expands the definition of such events: "Extreme circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks. Significant non-nuclear strategic attacks include, but are not limited to, attacks on the US, allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure."

Essentially, the draft opens the door for the US to respond to a devastating cyberattack with a nuclear strike. Perhaps a low-yield strike, even. Previously, the US has been averse to a first-use scenario, pledging to launch nuclear weapons only if the country were directly targeted by other nukes.

"It's actually incredibly alarming that the Trump administration is putting forth the idea that we could use nuclear weapons in response to a cyberattack," Alexandra Bell of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation told National Public Radio on Monday [January 28th] [and National Public Radio likewise had not indicated that the January 13th WP article was their source]. "The Trump plan actually puts multiple options on the table — nuclear weapon in response to a chemical attack, to a biological weapons attack, to an attack on civilians without a real description of where that threshold is and really widens the options for President Trump to use nuclear weapons."

None of these conditions appeared in the final document, which instead said nothing about any of them.

In particular, the specifically quoted passage, which so alarmed these people:

“Extreme circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks. Significant non-nuclear strategic attacks include, but are not limited to, attacks on the US, allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure.”

does not appear in the final document that was published on February 2^nd.

Furthermore, other seemingly moderating changes appear to have been made. Back on January 9th, Britain’s Guardian had headlined “US to loosen nuclear weapons constraints and develop more 'usable' warheads” and reported that “The new nuclear policy is significantly more hawkish that [meaning “than”] the posture adopted by the Obama administration, which sought to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US defence,” and that, “Arms control advocates have voiced alarm at the new proposal to make smaller, more 'usable' nuclear weapons, arguing it makes a nuclear war more likely.”

Clearly, the initial recommendations from Trump’s Defense Secretary Mattis, who shapes Trump’s military views, have been somewhat softened — made less stupid — due to intensive criticisms in the press against them; and this fact indicates that Trump isn’t totally ignoring the opposition (i.e., Democratic Party) press, and that sometimes the billionaires who control the opposition Party and its media, can get through to him, via their media.

However, the final Trump-Mattis document is still extremely incoherent, self-contradictory, and does leave open the possibility that the types of extreme danger to the world’s security that worried these critics of the draft, will become instituted in actual practice by Mattis-Trump. He/they merely removed the explicit statements of the conditions in which the US would initiate a nuclear war. Trump-Mattis just reverted to Obama.

The big problem in the document (and which no one has pointed out) is that it (like all its predecessors) ignores the basic issue regarding nuclear weapons, which is: that there is no such thing as a nuclear weapon which isn’t a strategic weapon; any ‘nuke’, no matter how ‘small’, is a strategic nuclear weapon. The very concept of ‘tactical nukes’ is fraudulent.

Once the nuclear threshold has been breached in a confrontation between the two military super-powers (US & Russia), the history of civilization will be terminated. Much, but hardly all, of that termination will be what occurs in the first 20 to 30 minutes — the actual nuclear exchanges themselves. World War III, if it happens at all, will be finished in less than 30 minutes, especially because the US has its missiles right on, and near, Russia’s borders. Russia is already down to very nearly a launch-on-warning response-window. Waiting before unleashing the entire retaliatory arsenal would be suicidal, because, otherwise, the opponent’s attack could obliterate much of that arsenal before it’s even in the air. This is why the first side to “go nuclear” against the other will be at an enormous strategic advantage. ‘Tactical’ nuclear weapons (‘small’ nukes) should thus be outlawed altogether. Anything (such as the use of ‘small nukes’) that lowers the nuclear threshold, increases enormously the likelihood of a world-ending nuclear war, because the nuclear threshold has then already been crossed. The side that crossed it might say that “We didn’t cross our strategic threshold,” but the opposite side might feel that it crossed theirs. Mattis ignores this reality, which can’t be modified (far less nullified) by any technological development (such as he assumes). Nuclear weapons are, by their very physics, vastly higher energy-intensity than any other type of weaponry; and any attempt to make them smaller, or the delivery-system more accurate, doesn’t at all make them non-nuclear. If a weapon entails a nuclear-energy release, then it’s a nuclear weapon. Period. And any nuclear weapon is a strategic weapon. That’s just a strategic fact.

As Michel Chossudovsky wrote on February 5th (but based largely on those earlier news-reports that turned out not to reflect the final document), under the headline “Secret Meeting on the Privatization of Nuclear War Held on Hiroshima Day 2003: Behind closed doors at Strategic Command Headquarters”, providing important historical context to this:

The Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review 2018 has called for “the development of new, more usable nuclear weapons”.

The 2018 NPR is in many regards Déjà Vu.

What seems to have escaped the numerous media reports on the 2018 NPR is that the development of “more usable nuclear weapons” had already been put forth in George W. Bush’s 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, which was adopted by the US Senate in late 2002. In this regard, Senator Edward Kennedy had accused the Bush Administration for having developed “a generation of more usable nuclear weapons,” namely tactical nuclear weapons (B61-11 mini-nukes) with an explosive capacity between one third and 6 times times a Hiroshima bomb.

The term “more usable” emanates from debate surrounding the 2001 NPR, which justified the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the conventional war theater on the grounds that tactical nuclear weapons, namely bunker buster bombs with a nuclear warhead, are, according to scientific opinion on contract to the Pentagon [and thus hired in order to buttress the Pentagon’s viewpoint] “harmless to the surrounding population because the explosion is underground.”

Even if a ‘small nuke’ explodes underground, it can still be achieving a strategic objective — maybe even a decisive one, in a war that possesses major strategic significance.

Nuclear war starts when nuclear weapons are first used. Period.

The military opponent might be a non-nuclear power, in which case there won’t be nuclear retaliation. This would be like Japan 1945 (and the bombs that were used on those cities were ‘small’ enough to qualify to be referred to today as having been ‘small nukes’, or ‘tactical nuclear weapons’). But America’s use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was “strategic” nonetheless. To deny this is simply to lie. It’s what Mattis-Trump-Obama-Bush do/did, and what almost all neoconservatives are committed to doing in order to increase the bottom lines of ‘Defense’ contractors.

However, Mattis-Trump aren’t aiming to increase America’s ‘small nukes’ stockpiles only, or even mainly, in order to win ‘conventional’ wars (which WW II was). They have been openly pushing for it against both Russia and China. They have been publicly lowering the barrier to WW III.

How serious is this issue?

The only widely available scientific estimates of the impact that a nuclear war would have were done by Steven Starr — a scientist entirely non-dependent upon Lockheed Martin and other corporations that depend for their existence upon the most expensive of all strategic weapons systems, which are the nuclear-capable ones. A good summary of Starr’s analysis can be found here. However, his analysis is really based upon earlier ones, and those will now be discussed:

The latest scientific analysis of “Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War” was published in Physics Today December 2008, and said “A regional war involving 100 Hiroshima-sized weapons would pose a worldwide threat due to ozone destruction and climate change. A superpower confrontation with a few thousand weapons would be catastrophic.” That term “catastrophic” was a typical scholarly understatement, which actually meant ending civilization (if not ultimately life on Earth), but the article includes no direct verbiage about that, only such obtuse phrases as:

In the SORT conflict, we assume that Russia targets 1000 weapons on the US and 200 warheads each on France, Germany, India, Japan, Pakistan, and the UK. We assume the US targets 1100 weapons each on China and Russia. We do not consider the 1000 weapons held in the UK, China, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and possibly North Korea. ...

With 1000 weapons detonated in the US, 48% of the total population and 59% of the urban population could fall within about 5 km of ground zero; 20% of the total population and 25% of the urban population could be killed outright, while an additional 16% of the total population and 20% of the urban population could become injured. ...

Because the soot associated with a nuclear exchange is injected into the upper atmosphere, the stratosphere is heated and stratospheric circulation is perturbed. For the 5-Tg injection associated with a regional conflict [much smaller than a Russia-America war would be], stratospheric temperatures would remain elevated by 30°C [54 degrees Fahrenheit] after four years.6–8 [No estimate is provided in the case of a Russia-v.-America conflict. Presumably, it would quickly end the world; so, it’s not publicly analyzed.] The resulting temperature and circulation anomalies would reduce ozone columns by 20% globally, by 25–45% at middle latitudes, and by 50–70% at northern high latitudes for perhaps as much as five years, with substantial losses persisting for an additional five years.7 

The calculations of the 1980s generally did not consider such effects or the mechanisms that cause them. Rather, they focused on the direct injection of nitrogen oxides by the fireballs of large-yield weapons that are no longer deployed. Global-scale models have only recently become capable of performing the sophisticated atmospheric chemical calculations needed to delineate detailed ozone-depletion mechanisms. Indeed, simulations of ozone loss following a SORT conflict have not yet been conducted. …

For any nuclear conflict, nuclear winter would seriously [the term “seriously” is nowhere defined] affect noncombatant countries.12 

In a hypothetical SORT war, for example, we estimate that most of the world’s population, including that of the Southern Hemisphere would be threatened by the indirect effects on global climate.

The norm for scientists — who are hired by large corporations that have huge stakes in the ‘findings’ and that hire those same scientists only to the extent the given scientist supports the same things that their employers support — is to avoid terminology that will attract non-specialists, and this article included no estimates as to how many survivors there would be after all the nuclear poisoning and ozone depletion and soaring high-altitude temperatures and ultimate plunging ground-temperatures, and the interactions of all those factors. The scientific establishment (largely dependent upon the military-industrial complex) and the political establishment (likewise) are obviously not trying to educate the public about any of those realities — and Mattis says nothing about them, if he even knows about them. Does he have the numbers that aren’t published? Why are they not published? Who benefits by hiding these matters from the public? Who will hire Mattis after he leaves Government? Does he really think that the US military can force the rest of the world in the way that America’s Deep State (billionaires and their hired agents inside and outside the US Government) want?

Subsequently, in January 2010, some of the same scientists who had done that December 2008 study, published “Local Nuclear War”, and opened: "Worry has focused on the US versus Russia, but a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan could blot out the sun, starving much of the human race.” That sounds about the same as they had said earlier would happen if the US and Russia haul off against each other. Obviously, however, a Russia-v.-US war would actually be much worse than a Pakistan-v.-India war. Something’s wrong here. The scientists aren’t doing their job; or, if they are, it’s not the public’s job (i.e., not informing the public in a democracy as a real democracy would require), it’s the military-industrial complex’s job that they’re doing. And people such as Mattis are the very public front of it. And US President Donald Trump has essentially contracted-out his international relations to Mattis.

Here are highlights, key excerpts, from the final published Nuclear Posture Review; and, after it will be discussed its key failings:

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media.defense.gov

NUCLEAR POSTURE REVIEW FEBRUARY 2018

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

Executive Summary Introduction On January 27, 2017, President Donald Trump directed Secretary of Defense James Mattis to initiate a new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). The President made clear that his first priority is to protect the United States, allies, and partners. He also emphasized both the long-term goal of eliminating nuclear weapons and the requirement that the United States have modern, flexible, and resilient nuclear capabilities that are safe and secure until such a time as nuclear weapons can prudently be eliminated from the world. The United States remains committed to its efforts in support of the ultimate global elimination of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. It has reduced the nuclear stockpile by over 85 percent since the height of the Cold War and deployed no new nuclear capabilities for over two decades. Nevertheless, global threat conditions have worsened markedly since the most recent 2010 NPR, including increasingly explicit nuclear threats from potential adversaries. …

The Value of US Nuclear Capabilities 

The fundamental reasons why US nuclear capabilities and deterrence strategies are necessary for US, allied, and partner security are readily apparent. US nuclear capabilities make essential contributions to the deterrence of nuclear and non-nuclear aggression. The deterrence effects they provide are unique and essential to preventing adversary nuclear attacks, which is the highest priority of the United States. US nuclear capabilities cannot prevent all conflict, and should not be expected to do so. But, they contribute uniquely to the deterrence of both nuclear and non-nuclear aggression. They are essential for these purposes and will be so for the foreseeable future. Non-nuclear forces also play essential deterrence roles, but do not provide comparable deterrence effects — as is reflected by past, periodic, and catastrophic failures of conventional deterrence to prevent Great Power war before the advent of nuclear deterrence. … 

Deterrence of Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Attack 

Effective US deterrence of nuclear attack and non-nuclear strategic attack requires ensuring that potential adversaries do not miscalculate regarding the consequences of nuclear first use, either regionally or against the United States itself. They must understand that there are no possible benefits from non-nuclear aggression or limited nuclear escalation. Correcting any such misperceptions is now critical to maintaining strategic stability in Europe and Asia. …

Enhancing Deterrence with Non-strategic Nuclear Capabilities 

Existing elements of the nuclear force replacement program predate the dramatic deterioration of the strategic environment. To meet the emerging requirements of US strategy, the United States will now pursue select supplements to the replacement program to enhance the flexibility and responsiveness of US nuclear forces. It is a reflection of the versatility and flexibility of the US triad that only modest supplements are now required in this much more challenging threat environment. These supplements will enhance deterrence by denying potential adversaries any mistaken confidence that limited nuclear employment can provide a useful advantage over the United States and its allies. Russia’s belief that limited nuclear first use, potentially including low-yield weapons, can provide such an advantage is based, in part, on Moscow’s perception that its greater number and variety of non-strategic nuclear systems provide a coercive advantage in crises and at lower levels of conflict. Recent Russian statements on this evolving nuclear weapons doctrine appear to lower the threshold for Moscow’s first-use of nuclear weapons. Russia demonstrates its perception of the advantage these systems provide through numerous exercises and statements. Correcting this mistaken Russian perception is a strategic imperative. …

Expanding flexible US nuclear options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression. It will raise the nuclear threshold and help ensure that potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in limited nuclear escalation, making nuclear employment less likely. … In the near-term, the United States will modify a small number of existing SLBM warheads to provide a low-yield option, and in the longer term, pursue a modern nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM). Unlike DCA, a low-yield SLBM warhead and SLCM will not require or rely on host nation support to provide deterrent effect. They will provide additional diversity in platforms, range, and survivability, and a valuable hedge against future nuclear “break out” scenarios. DoD and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will develop for deployment a low-yield SLBM warhead to ensure a prompt response option that is able to penetrate adversary defenses. This is a comparatively low-cost and near term modification to an existing capability that will help counter any mistaken perception of an exploitable “gap” in US regional deterrence capabilities. In addition to this near-term step, for the longer term the United States will pursue a nuclear-armed SLCM, leveraging existing technologies to help ensure its cost effectiveness. SLCM will provide a needed non-strategic regional presence, an assured response capability. 

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[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he dead give-away there is the subhead “Enhancing Deterrence with Non-strategic Nuclear Capabilities.” There are no “non-strategic nuclear capabilities.” Mattis-Trump still accept the lie that there are. If they don’t know that it’s a lie, they’re idiots.

In other words: the NPR (meaning Nuclear Posture Review, not National Public Radio) is based upon using nuclear weapons in order to win a nuclear war. That has actually been America’s real nuclear strategy ever since at least 2006. ‘Small’ nukes will now be used instead of conventional weapons, to “warn” “the enemy” against using “small nukes.” The problem with this line of thinking is that it ignores that, regardless of whether the conflict starts with regular weapons or with “small nukes,” the response to it will necessarily be a total blitz release of the other side’s entire strategic nuclear stockpile, because the first side to release its entire nuclear stockpile against the other will be the one that suffers the less harm. In military parlance, the side that suffers the less harm is the ‘winner’, regardless of any other factor. That’s the basic reality of military strategy: it’s inevitably win-lose, not win-win.

The advantage to “going first” is much greater in strategic military matters than it is in chess or other (i.e., non-fatal) “competitive games.” Mattis ignores, instead of states, this fact.

The first side to release everything will destroy some of the other side’s weaponry and thus enormously weaken the other side. And defense against nuclear weapons costs much more than does increasing the weapons that are strictly for aggression (the latter of which — overtly, instead of merely covertly, aggressive weapons — is Russia’s strategy).

In any war, even ‘defensive’ weapons are for aggressive purposes — to win — in this case, to invalidate some of the opposite side’s attacking weaponry.

The United States is trying to create ABM (BMD) systems that will eliminate Russia’s retaliatory weapons in the event that the US attacks Russia first. With existing nuclear-warhead treaty-limits against both sides, there is no way for Russia to countervail America’s ABM-buildup other than to exceed the existing nuclear-warhead-limiting treaties. Putin and his successors won’t tolerate America’s spending-war against the Soviet Union being repeated against Russia. If driven by the US to do so, Russia’s response will thus be to exceed existing warhead-limitations, as being the more cost-effective way to respond to America’s ABM buildup — a buildup that threatens Russia’s ability to retaliate against a possible NATO nuclear blitz-attack, first-strike surprise invasion, against Russia.

America is trying to outspend Russia into historical oblivion before a nuclear war even happens. But Russia, like America, would rather strike first than be struck first, and won’t allow the US to gain the ability to win a nuclear war. America’s policy is “M.A.D. is dead.” Nuclear victory is now the goal. As was previously said, this has been the strategic nuclear policy of the United States Government since at least 2006. In fact, this US nuclear policy was subsequently confirmed in a shocking article published on 1 March 2017 in the prestigious Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. So, it can no longer be reasonably denied. Winning a nuclear war against Russia is now irrefutably the US Government’s real objective. This fact, also significantly, exposes the fraudulence (or else ignorance) of the Princetonian, Professor Blair, in the January 13th Washington Post article, saying “Alarmingly, the wizards have uprooted the nuclear taboo.” That ‘taboo’ was actually ended by the US Establishment by no later than 2006, but has been consistently continued on the Russian side (which has no incentive whatsoever to promote the blatant lie that a nuclear war between the US and Russia can be ‘won’).

The very concept of “victory” in a nuclear war between the two military super-powers is insane. It is pre-nuclear thinking. Mattis and Trump are now basically committed to it, just as was President Obama, and George W. Bush before him. Mattis’s NPR was going to fill in some of the blanks that prior US Presidents didn’t yet want filled in, but the torrent of criticisms from Democratic Party newsmedia seem to have stopped that.

Thus: on nuclear strategy, Trump is continuing Obama. No one is publicly discussing what’s central. Even the published criticisms don’t.

In the nuclear age, the mere possession of nuclear weapons places the given nation into a strategically different category than any that even so much as existed in pre-nuclear-weapon history. That’s the reason why there has been so much concern about North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program, and about the possible such program in Iran. In warfare, nuclear is strategic — never merely ‘tactical’. Any nation that operationalizes nuclear weaponry enters thereby into a military category that didn’t even exist until 1945. Any press statements that pertain to nuclear weaponry but ignore this basic strategic fact about them, disqualify both the publisher and the writer. Any nuclear weapon is a strategic weapon, by definition of “nuclear weapon.” This is especially the case if it’s being used against another nuclear-weapon nation. However, even when Japan surrendered to the US in 1945, because it had no deliverable nuclear weapon with which to retaliate, that was very definitely a strategically significant matter.

Incidentally, Mattis’s (and this statement did make it into the final draft) “Russia’s belief that limited nuclear first use, potentially including low-yield weapons, can provide such an advantage” is probably entirely fictitious — a lie about “Russia’s belief.” Russia has not — at least not publicly — endorsed any such “belief”; and, the last time when Russia even so much as mentioned the subject (which was as of 2003), “Russian officials say that the lack of information about Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons is necessary.” As of today, a Google-search for the phrase “Russia's new tactical nuclear weapon” produces a finding: “No results found for ‘Russia's new tactical nuclear weapon’.” None — ever, including now. In other words: no Russian tactical nuclear weapon has ever been reported to the public, even by Russia’s enemies (i.e., by the US and its allies). Mattis is almost certainly lying to employ the phrase “Russia’s belief that limited nuclear first use, potentially including low-yield weapons, can provide such an advantage”; but, if he’s not, then the Government that currently hires him is obligated to its public (if there’s anything at all democratic about that Government) to provide evidence backing up that allegation. And, as to whether the US Government itself (such as in that statement from Mattis) should ever be trusted, the answer is very clearly no. So, that evidence needs to be provided by the US Government, to the public; and, otherwise, the NPR should be viewed as being both scurrilous and extremely dangerous to the entire world, for unsupportedly alleging this. But, in any case, NATO already publicly acknowledges having tactical nuclear weapons. And, as of 2011, the US had already deployed over 150 of them in Europe. The US has those weapons, which should be illegal, but the big debate on the US side is how they ‘should’ be used. They should be the first weapons to be destroyed. The aggressor is clearly the US.

America’s military-industrial complex (sometimes called “neoconservatives”) now headlines ‘news’-reports, by such unintended bad jokes as “Tactical Nuclear Weapons: How America Could Have Won the Vietnam War?” which are just PR pieces for costly new government-contracts for military-supply corporations such as Raytheon to produce yet more of these weapons that ought to be outright destroyed; so, now, we’re supposed to believe (from the military-industrial complex’s ‘news’media) that there could have been a ‘technological fix’ for the Vietnam War (which war was actually just a US-and-allied invasion of Vietnam). Napalm wasn’t already bad enough? Really?

A November 2011 US Army War College study “Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present and Future”, which reflected 100% neoconservative assumptions, said (p. 296) "an analysis of Russia’s current thinking about nuclear issues reveals ongoing and vigorous high-level debates about nuclear weapons. This debate is evidently linked to the domestic struggle for primacy between the factions around Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev.” Then:

The public debate began in earnest in October 2009 when Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council, told an interviewer that the forthcoming defense doctrine will be amended to allow for the possibility of preventive and preemptive first strikes, including nuclear strikes, even in the context of a purely conventional local war and even at the lower level of operational-tactical, as opposed to strategic, strikes.10 This triggered a major public debate over those questions that paralleled the private debate among Russia’s leaders. Although ultimately the published doctrine omitted to say these things, the citation above about armored vehicles suggests that for many Patrushev’s views are nevertheless reflected there.11 In addition, the doctrine was accompanied by a classified publication on nuclear issues that left foreign observers in the dark about when Russia might or might not go nuclear and for what purposes and missions.

The same book (p. 321) even presents an amazing passage which acknowledges “the danger [to Russia] (as listed in the new defense doctrine) of NATO enlargement, and the threat of [US] missile defenses coming closer to Russia” and then it just ignores this outrageously unacceptable danger to Russia, and proceeds to try to portray as if today’s non-communist Russia is the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact partners, and as if they are positioning weaponry on and near America’s borders — to portray that the aggressor is Russia, and not NATO:

Fourth, given these conditions, the danger (as listed in the new defense doctrine) of NATO enlargement, and the threat of missile defenses coming closer to Russia, Moscow believes that it is being placed under mounting military-political pressure, or at least professes to be so, even though it undoubtedly knows that NATO is hardly an offensive threat and that the US missile defenses cannot threaten its systems.92 Therefore, it has been ready for at least a decade with its threat of striking first with nuclear weapons, even against conventional strikes, if the threat to its interests is dire enough. Thus in 1999 Colonel General Vladimir Yakovlev, commander in chief of Russia’s nuclear forces, stated that: “Russia, for objective reasons, is forced to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons, extend the nuclear deterrent to smaller-scale conflicts and openly warn potential opponents about this.”93 Since then, there has been no mention of any further alteration of this threshold. Consequently Russia sees nuclear weapons as warfighting weapons.

That “or at least professes to be so” indicates the author’s distrust of Russia’s many pleas to the US military alliance not to do this. His “NATO is hardly an offensive threat” is a lie so blatant that only an idiot could actually believe it. Regardless of whether its author was stupid or instead a liar, those interjections from him reflect the mind-set of the people who write such things — such writers blatantly disqualify themselves from being trusted by any intelligent human being.

Subsequently (p. 331) the book made clear precisely which of the two — Putin or Medvedev — the author thought to be supporting tactical nuclear weaponry:

Medvedev made it clear that Russia does not need to increase its offensive nuclear capability any further than was originally planned.124 Clearly this directly contradicted Putin’s public remarks in December 2009, underscoring the continuing divisions between Putin and Medvedev and within the Russian military-political elite.

This conveniently ignores that Putin has always been talking only about the need for Russia to improve its strategic nuclear weaponry. No indication at all has been given anywhere, that Putin supports the development of tactical nuclear weapons. Perhaps he does; and perhaps Russia has some of those weapons (which would be idiotic for Russia to have), but the neoconservative US military-industrial complex isn’t yet publicly able to cite any evidence that Russia does (or is).

Even that book, which stretched as far as it could in order to assume that Russia has every type of weapon, and that the US therefore needs to catch up and spend yet more money on yet newer types of weapons from General Dynamics and Boeing etc. than it already does, could offer no evidence that Russia has any tactical nuclear weapons at all.

The United States seems to be now clearly trying to repeat its victory (a victory of capitalism over communism) in the Cold War against the Soviet Union — outspending it until exhausting ‘the enemy’ — but this time against Russia (which, unlike the Soviet Union, presents no ideological threat to America, nor any ideological or other military alliance against it such as the Warsaw Pact that the Soviet Union countered against America’s NATO alliance). All that Mattis-Trump will be able to achieve with this is to force Russia to quit all nuclear-warhead-limiting treaties.

Nuclear weapons, of any type, have only one constructive use: to deter being attacked. Without them, the Cold War might very likely have become a hot war. But with them, the world has gone since 1945 with no super-power war. “Ban the Bomb!” means: Let’s have yet another superpower war. M.A.D. is real. The US Establishment is lying to deny it, or even to question it. The “usefulness” of nuclear weapons thus is strictly of a psychological nature — but the most important usefulness of all for avoiding a WW III. Any actual physical war-use of a nuclear weapon would be evil. Perhaps even the armaments-firms that make billions from governments in many countries would rather it not happen, but they have stockholders whose wealth and power depends upon increasing governments’ expenditures on their militaries — and nuclear weapons-systems are the costliest of all. Buying (or advertising in) news-media to promote invasions is effective marketing for them. But with ever-increasing expenditure on weapons at the expense of authentically productive products and services, which help instead of maim and kill, the world gets closer and closer to having to choose between those investors, versus the world’s future. At some point, the world’s future must become governments’ top priority; no investors or any group of investors has the right to stand against that, regardless of how hard those investors might stand against the world.

The restored unlimited arms-race will be an enormous boon to the billionaires who own or control corporations such as Lockheed Martin, but the entire world will be impoverished as a result. Obviously, America’s billionaires don’t care at all about that (except in their pious ‘humanitarian’ rhetoric preaching to the rest of the world while funding politicians who push coups and invasions worldwide). 

WILLIAM J. ASTORE

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