Solidarity with the Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine

LONDON MEETING FOR THE ANTIFASCIST SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN: http://www.marxist.com/solidarity-with-antifascist-resistance-ukraine-london.htm

The Marxist Student Federation expresses its solidarity with the anti-fascist resistance in Ukraine.

In the last few months the Kiev authorities have been incorporating neo-nazi paramilitary groups into the state apparatus. These paramilitary groups are the government’s answer to the fact that ordinary soldiers are refusing to fight against their own people in the rebellious provinces of the East. These “Battalions” are composed of “patriotic volunteers”, many of whom come from fascist and neo-nazi organisations as well as retired members of the security forces.

The Kiev authorities are using these fascist groups to attack those who disagree with the government’s policies and to destroy democratic rights.

Borotba, a Marxist organisation set up in 2011 and which has played an important role in the anti-Kiev protests after the removal of Yanukovich, particularly in Odessa and Kharkov, was forced underground after the Odessa massacre on May 2 when over 40 people were killed as fascist thugs set fire to a Trade Union building. Its offices in Kharkov were raided by armed men from an unidentified police or paramilitary force without a search warrant. Their council candidate and regional council member in Odessa, Alex Albu, has had to flee the country to Crimea for fear of being arrested.

On May 20 a paramilitary gang of armed fascists attempted to kidnap a number of Borotba activists in broad day light at the end of a protest against the Kiev authorities in Freedom Square, in the centre of Kharkov. The attack was carried out by armed men, some wearing balaclavas and military fatigues who hand-cuffed a number of leading activists of Borotba and attempted to bundle them into an unmarked van.

Legal proceedings have also begun to ban the Communist Party of Ukraine (which received 2.7 million votes in the last election) and its leader Petr Simonenko was attacked by armed fascists when leaving a TV interview, on Friday, May 16. Fascist thugs, acting with the complicity or passivity of the state apparatus, have ransacked offices of the Communist Party in Kiev and other cities and have forced the party to cease its activities.

Armed thugs also assaulted the offices of the city and regional organisation of the Communist Party in Dnepropetrovsk in the evening of May 26. Paramilitary thugs seized the party’s city offices and occupied them. While in Lviv parades commemorating the Nazi SS Galitzia division, organised by parties in the current government are allowed to go on undisturbed.

Meanwhile, Kiev’s “acting government” is stepping up its “anti-terrorist operation” against the rebel Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic, using artillery fire, fighter jets and gunship helicopters – inevitably killing unarmed innocent civilians as well as armed opponents to the Kiev government. On May 27, scores were killed as Ukrainian troops fired on a convoy transporting wounded militia fighters to hospital.

This is the kind of “democracy” which today exists in Ukraine, with the full backing of Washington, London and Berlin.

Down with the murderous Kiev government!

Defend democratic rights!

Solidarity with the anti-fascist resistance!

Signed:

Claire Martin (President, Glasgow University Marxist Society)
Lee McNeish (President, Edinburgh University Marxist Society)
Danny Cowan-Turner (President, Newcastle University Marxist Society)
Ruth O’Sullivan (President, Manchester University Marxist Society)
Scott Shaw (President, Sheffield University Marxist Society)
Eoin Breathnach (President, Leeds University Marxist Society)
Arturo Rodriguez (President, Oxford University Marxist Society)
Mordecai Paechter (Secretary, Cambridge University Marxist Society)
Timur Dautov (President, UCLU Marxist Society)
Nigel Warren (President, Queen Mary Marxist Society)
Archie Marshall (President, LSESU Marxist Society)
Keziah Keeler (President, KCL Marxist Society)
Mattin Biglari (President, SOAS Marxist Society)
Nina Christou (President, Southampton University Marxist Society)
Jo Pickard (President, Sussex University Marxist Society)
James Freeman (President, Bristol University Marxist Society)
James Baird (President, Aberystwyth Marxist Society)
George Smith (President, Leicester Marxist Society)