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But what about Ukrainian self determination? (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 2 weeks ago by SlayGuevara@lemmygrad.ml to c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml

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So Ukraine has turned into a shit show with on the one hand Russia and on the other hand the US and EU. It is clear that Ukraine is merely a pawn in their chess game. This is clear to me.

I try to make it clear to my surroundings too but one question keeps coming back to me whenever it comes to peace talks: what about what Ukrainians want? Should they accept a split in their country with Russia seizing captured land?

I noticed that I do not have a clear answer to this and I wanted to see some input from you guys. Peace talks should imo be the goal as it would be the end to a bloody conflict and it would further (even if slightly) reduce risk for a bigger war. But it is also clear that Ukraine is just a pawn in those peace talks and everything will be decided between the US and Russia. Is it realistic to acknowledge Ukrainian interest in this? And if so, to what extent can leftist support said interests?

Thank you in advance for your answers. It might make it easier for me to go against the warmongering that has been going on lately, and to prevent people close to me from falling for it.

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[–] pcalau12i@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

To be clear, self-determination is not and never has been some fundamental principle of communism and as an absolute principle was something wholly rejected by Lenin.

The several demands of democracy, including self-determination, are not an absolute, but only a small part of the general-democratic (now: general-socialist) world movement. In individual concrete casts, the part may contradict the whole; if so, it must be rejected. It is possible that the republican movement in one country may be merely an instrument of the clerical or financial-monarchist intrigues of other countries; if so, we must not support this particular, concrete movement, but it would be ridiculous to delete the demand for a republic from the programme of international Social-Democracy on these grounds.

Lenin, The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up

The point is that, while self-determination is generally a good slogan, we should actually oppose self-determination if this self-determination is not actually beneficial to the global anti-imperialist struggle and is just a tool by the ruling class of some nation to further their own interests. It's sort of like how western countries keep trying to funnel underground money into religious extremists in Xinjiang and encourages them to promote secession. This tactic is used for the purpose of trying to break apart China to weaken it for western imperialist interests, and so it shouldn't be supported.

Ukraine's government underwent a US-backed coup that immediately banned left-wing parties like the communist party and began to promote Ukrainian fascism. When you talk about self-determination of Ukraine, what you are really talking about is hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians being conscripted to the front-lines to die on behalf of the borders of this US-backed fascist proxy state. It is hardly even Ukrainian "self-determination" but just the right of the US bourgeoisie to dominate Ukrainian politics and determine their future for them.

Besides, it's not like Russia has ever even stated their goal is to conquer all of Ukraine, anyways. They have stated since the beginning of their invasion that the goal was only to take control of the Donbas region which had seceded from Ukraine in a referendum. So if you want to talk about self-determination, what about the self-determination of LPR and DPR?