THOUGHTS ON THE CRISIS IN UKRAINE
Putin's Poker Face
I.
We have all
come across it, the chillingly blank expression, the unblinking stare, the cold
hard look as you are told lies; the poker face. Though never having played the
card game I am certainly familiar with the concept of the bluff. Looking at
the face of Vladimir Putin you know he would be a perfect poker player, it is
impossible to read his intentions.
I wrote as
recently as two weeks ago that I thought it unlikely that Putin would move
quickly on Eastern Ukraine, I was not the only one. We were all wrong. It seems
that Putin calculated that his best move was the one least expected. He also
appears to have calculated that time is not on his side. From his perspective
it is important that the new government in Kiev not be allowed to stabilise and
facilitate open and free elections that will then create a legitimacy that the
current regime in the Ukrainian capital lacks. He also calculates that the west
will hold back from acting too firmly, a consequence of splits between the EU
and US and within the EU itself, with Germany in particular being cool about
serious sanctions. As it happens he may have miscalculated. I have been
pleasantly surprised by Angela Merkel’s solidity. I worry more about lobbying
from the City of London, which will seek to dilute any sanctions likely to
damage the wealth of financial institutions and individuals in the City.
Putin is gambling
and has consciously raised the stakes, he also has a gun under the table and is
likely to use it if the alternative to using it is losing face.
We are now
in the most dangerous situation in Europe since the collapse of the Soviet
Union, times like these have the capacity to spiral out of control and it is
hard to resist the parallels with 1914. History though far from teaching us not
to make mistakes just ensures that any mistakes we make will be fresh ones.
 |
| A Pro Russian Member of the Defence Militia? |
It is also worth keeping an eye on China during this period. The men in Beijing have irredentist claims of their own and they will be watching carefully as to how much Putin is allowed to get what he wants.
The Moral Bankruptcy of the Far Left
II.
For the
sake of this piece your correspondent visited the so called Stop the War
Coalition website [StW]– greater love hath no man. It is a site worth keeping an eye on since it provides a window on the thinking of those who seem to imagine
themselves to be on the revolutionary left. Unsurprisingly you find there that the
crises in the Ukraine is all the fault of western governments in general and Britain
and the US in particular. (Rather comically the only people who still believe
Britain to be a great imperial power are senile old generals sitting in the
House of Lords and the far left).
It can be
difficult, and unpleasant, to try to make sense of the mind-set of these
people, not least the notion that they imagine they are offering a radical critique.
Thus we have:-
‘But the United States and NATO
broke their word to Russia, by adding most of Eastern Europe and the Balkan
states to their own military alliance, and by building military bases along
Russia's southern border. Ever since the end of the Cold War in 1991, the
European Union (EU) and NATO have been intent on surrounding Russia with
military bases and puppet regimes sympathetic to the West…’[1]
Leaving
aside the disgusting smear on countries like Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania,
Poland, Slovakia, and Bulgaria as ‘puppet regimes,’ and the fact that in these
democratic countries citizens voted for governments who stood on a platform of
entry into the EU and NATO,[2]
the writer here presents in unadulterated form the 19th century doctrine
of ‘spheres of influence.’ This doctrine in which ‘great powers’, carve up
regions of the world irrespective of the wishes of local populations, being
extolled on a website pertaining to be of the left!
But the
most revealing passage comes later on, and uncovers the real betrayal of the
historic doctrine of left wing solidarity by the vacuous, jargon spouting
zealots of StW:-
‘Those who demand anti-war activity
here in Britain against Russia are ignoring the history and the present reality
in Ukraine and Crimea. The B52 liberals only oppose wars when their own rulers
do so, and support the ones carried out by our governments. The job of any anti-war movement is to
oppose its own government's role in these wars, and to explain what that
government and its allies are up to.’’[3]
[My emphasis]
This
disgusting doctrine, wrapped up in slurs, lies and misrepresentation owes a
great deal to none other than Noam Chomsky, and has been brilliantly dissected
by Nick Cohen. Thus Chomsky presents his governing principle:-
‘The ethical value of one’s actions
depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to
denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value
as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century.’[4]
As Nick
points out:-
‘…It is
not courageous to protest in a Western country against the actions of a Western
government when Western societies protect your rights to protest, and to speak
and to write freely…consider the isolationist view conveyed by that glib little
phrase “the atrocities of someone else”, which slips from his lips like a
sneer.’’[5]
The moral
bankruptcy of the Chomsky position, now adopted as the template by much of the far
left is as exposed as the King in the Hans Christian Andersen story. What would
Chomsky have said to the left of the 1930's who offered solidarity with those fighting Franco in
Republican Spain, or opposing the growing persecution of the Jews in Nazi
Germany? Well he would say:-
“It is very easy to
denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value
as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century.”
Putin's Dilemma
II.
 |
| Victims of Ukraine's man made famine of the 1930's |
Few
countries suffered as much in the 20th Century as Ukraine.[6]
The catalogue of atrocities visited upon the inhabitants of a country the size
of France is truly incomprehensible. Immediately following on from the
disasters of the First World War and the Civil War the Bolshevik rulers in
Moscow turned their attention to Ukrainian nationalism. Beginning in 1929, over 5,000 Ukrainian
scholars, scientists, cultural and religious leaders were arrested after being
falsely accused of plotting an armed revolt. Those arrested were either shot
without a trial or deported to prison camps in remote areas of Russia. There
then followed the elimination of the wealthy peasants, ‘the Kulaks’ and the
forced collectivisation of Ukrainian farming and seizure of grain, which was to
be sold overseas to pay for industrialisation. The famine resulting from these
actions has been estimated by Robert Conquest at 14.5 million--more than the
total number of deaths for all countries in World War I.
 |
| Kharkiv Under German Occupation |
Still
devastated by the famine and the years of the Stalinist Great Terror the
country was then invaded by Nazi Germany in 1941. After the famine and the
Great Terror some Ukrainians certainly welcomed the Germans as liberators, some
even fighting for the German army.
Hitler’s
however intended that the Ukraine be completely ethnically cleansed of Jews and
all the rest of its Russian and Ukrainian inhabitants. The country was to become
a German colony to be named Goth-land. A few Ukrainians might be permitted to
remain as servants or slaves.
 |
| German Propaganda poster presenting Hitler as the liberator of Ukraine |
It is hard
to calculate the exact number of Ukrainians who died during World War 2, since
no separate figures were ever kept, the Ukraine simply representing merely one
constituent part of the Soviet Union; however it can be safely stated that it
ran into many millions.
Ukrainian
collaboration with the Nazi’s still rankles in Russia, whilst Ukrainians
remember the famine and the attempts made to destroy Ukrainian language and
culture. That said the relationship between Russia and the Ukraine is a multi-layered
and complex one that has developed over the centuries. The Western region, incorporated as it had been into the Austro Hungarian Empire, leaning more
towards the West than the Eastern districts bordering Russia. Indeed the roots
of Russian civilisation lie in Kiev and Kievan Rus and many Russians regard
Russia and Ukraine as one and the same. Fewer Ukrainians see things this way.
The central
point being however that it is neither possible nor desirable to break the
interwoven relationship between the two states, a relationship as strong and
complex as that between England and Scotland.*
The roots
of the current crisis can be firmly found in Moscow and the regime of Vladimir
Putin, for whom the thought of a ‘stable democratic and independent Ukraine
seeking prosperity through closer links with the EU, keeps him awake at night.
Precisely because there is such strong cultural and historical ties with the
Ukraine Putin cannot countenance Ukraine developing a healthy democracy. What a
model that would provide for Russian citizens?
*Not even
the fiercest Scottish Nationalist
envisage a hostile relationship with England should they achieve independence;
indeed part of their case seems to be that on a day to day level little will
change.
[2]
These countries often having been on the receiving end of Russian aggression
understandably were reluctant to rely solely on Russian goodwill and the
continuance of largely benign administrations in Moscow, -with the advent of
Putin how right they were.
[4]
Quoted in http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/03/chomsky-in-the-crimea/
I really do recommend reading this article in full
[5]
Ibid
[6]
The suffering of Poland was perhaps as great, that of Russia almost equal in
such a hideous top ten.
Having visited this page I would be grateful for your feedback, either tick one of the boxes below or make a comment via the comments button.
