Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

For almost four years now, Ukraine has been subjected to barbaric aggression by Russian imperialism. Every day, Putin's missiles and bombs kill innocent people – primarily workers who do not have the means or opportunity to flee the war to the West or abroad. According to rough estimates by the UN, since the Russian invasion (early 2022), more than 15,000 civilians have been killed and about 35,000 wounded. The aggressor constantly attacks residential areas with various weapons, from artillery to missiles and long-range drones.

All this once again speaks to the essence of capitalist wars, which reflect the greedy interests of the ruling classes. On the one hand, there is Kremlin imperialism, which has adopted the worst traits and approaches of the Soviet social imperialists, as well as other global imperialist “well-wishers.” On the other hand, there is the cynicism and greed of the West and the Ukrainian bourgeoisie. The rich in Ukraine do not fight on the front lines, nor do they suffer from rising food or clothing prices; the burden of war falls on the shoulders of the working class.

In times of struggle against a vile external enemy, if class consciousness is not sufficiently developed, workers may well succumb to official propaganda—which, of course, focuses on the “just war” rather than on the systemic problems of the working people. Moreover, a petty-bourgeois way of thinking is widespread among Ukrainian workers, which hinders class analysis and, in general, a rational view of events and processes.

At the same time, those who “nostalgically” remember the USSR often tend to at least partially justify Russian imperialism, which cynically manipulates such “nostalgia” and images from the Soviet past (symbols, songs, films, etc.). However, the rottenness and deceitfulness of the Kremlin regime is easy to trace not only in its criminal acts inside and outside Russia, but also in the direct statements of its leaders. Suffice it to recall Vladimir Putin's words, spoken on the night of the attack on Ukraine, that it was “invented by Lenin” and therefore needs “real decommunization” — that is, the elimination of Ukraine. Or the dictator's thesis that the principles of socialism and communism are “sublimation and primitive excerpts from the Bible.”

Whatever the images of bourgeois propaganda and the bourgeois worldview may be, they cannot reflect the real interests of the working people. It is not language, skin color, or place of birth that determine consciousness, but social reality, its laws, and its contradictions. The true interest of the working people is not in building a “strong nation,” but in moving toward a just socialist society. To achieve this, it is not enough to overcome Putin's aggression and liberate ourselves from Putin's bloody “liberators.” The working class of Ukraine—as well as Russia and other countries—has a long road ahead of it in terms of class maturation and class struggles.