The Left Berlin News & Comment

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Month: March 2022

What the Querdenkers are getting right

Chats on Telegram about Covid-19 are everywhere, and I couldn’t help myself but to join a few. After a few months, it seems we might be able to learn something from the Querdenkers.


23/03/2022

For all its problems and controversies, I am an avid Telegram user. I love the fun stickers, and the interface, but most of all the group chats I’m a part of. I get news from Moria, the Polish border, and #LeaveNoOneBehind. I share food with my neighbors and pick up free furniture and oddities from around Berlin. Before I was employed, it helped me ride the Ubahn for free (I stopped, I swear!). I can ask what’s wrong with my plants, and also easily coordinate plenums and activities for the organizations I’m involved in. And since I use it like social media, I tootle around here and there to look for new groups.

Then it happened — I stumbled upon an anti-vax, covid-denying Telegram group run out of the US. Here they were! I was overcome by curiosity, and joined. As a disclaimer, I believe covid is real and that vaccines work, but do have a lot of problems with governmental policy on this virus, in Germany, the US, and around the world — a topic for another article.

So now you may be thinking what the fuck, and that’s fine. Some of my friends for sure think I’m nuts. But I am firmly of the opinion that closing off discussion with people is the absolute wrong way to go. I was really curious as to what people were saying in the group, and how they were viewing the pandemic. There is a tendency for people to lump those who disagree with them into categories of ‘stupid’, ‘uneducated’, and ‘don’t know how the world actually works’, but this is dangerous territory – pushing people to the margins has consequences.

As someone with connection to many places in the United States, I saw Trump happening years before a lot of the people I was around had any idea. That first election, when the New York Times put out a poll that Hilary had an 87% chance of winning, I knew they were dead wrong. Just driving through the rural south, or through Texas, is a shock to many who grow up in big cities elsewhere in the country. Massive inequality abounds, and is held in place by state and local governments who have systematically eliminated peoples’ right to vote. Is everyone in those areas stupid, backward, and ultra-conservative? Of course not. But from the dominant media and pop cultures narratives, you would think so. Taylor Swift’s video for You Need to Calm Down is a great example.

What does this have to do with those Telegram chats? When a society completely ostracizes groups on the margins, the people in those groups grow more radical, and with every disparaging comment saying how backwards, stupid and dangerous they are, the more radical they get. Isolating and refusing to communicate with groups can have its time and place, I agree, but I very strongly believe there is already a ton of that going on. What there is way less of is open discussion.

And this is what the Querdenkers and covid-deniers are getting right. Everyone is welcome in these groups, and to engage in discussion about the topics. Yes, everyone does mean Nazis, I’m aware of that, and I’m not saying that this is a great model we should all follow. But many people in Germany, the US, around the world, including those who are involved in Leftist politics and movements, are wondering how these ideologies spread so quickly. Looking through the members of these groups, or seeing who is marching in these protests, it is astounding how many different groups of people are represented. We like to think that we hold truly open forums for debate, but if someone who was against the vaccine came to sit at the table, how many people would actually speak to them?

Of course I realize this is not the only aspect at play here. There is enough racism, sexism and all the other -isms and -phobias that exist in the world in these groups. It is abundantly clear they are bringing together a lot of people who hold a lot of different biases, for sure. Just to reiterate, I do not find that comforting or good. What’s confusing to me is why so many people who would otherwise consider themselves Left-leaning are finding themselves pulled in by these movements. Is there open-mindedness to be found there that people are not finding on the Left? Perhaps.

A maybe-obvious caveat to this: I’m white, financially stable, able-bodied, and educated. I’m a walking ball of privilege, and I also grew up constantly defending my ideals against an onslaught of right-wing commentary from my family. It’s possible for me to engage with a lot of people, from my conservative, religious cousins to straight up Nazis. Clearly, that’s not possible, nor is it safe, for everyone. Also clearly, groups and discussions that Leftists engage in will inherently be more diverse than those that covid-deniers are attending. I don’t think we should start inviting absolutely everyone in to have tea with us, as that could endanger people who need a safe space.

There are no concrete recommendations coming out of this article on how the Left movement should change, nor do I even think I have a fully-formulated stance on this. The only thing I was thinking from my few months of reading these channels is that our spaces and our discussions need to be flexible, wherever possible. Don’t ostracize someone from a group because they have an opinion that you don’t like. Don’t assume people are stupid because their views and experiences have led them to a different view of how the world works than the one you have. If your covid-denying uncle starts saying that the world is controlled by the World Economic Forum, don’t call him an idiot and leave. Stay and talk, if you can.

Radio Berlin International #7 – Fridays for Future / Democracy for All / Tubman Network

Carla Reemtsma on why climate struggle is climate struggle. Amal Abbass on racism and Ukraine refugees. And the campaign to extend voting rights in Berlin.


In this episode, we hear from a Fridays for Future activist about the global climate strike coming up this week. Amal Abbass from Each One Teach One will speak on the racism experienced by people of colour fleeing Ukraine and how to help. And we’ll have news of the campaign to extend voting rights in Berlin.

This episode’s guests are:

This week’s playlist is:

  • Billie Eilish – all the good girls go to hell
  • K.I.Z. – Hurra die Welt geht unter
  • Nina Simone – New World Coming
  • Angelique Kidjo – Listening Wind
  • JMC Skyred ft. Stanley Rubyn – Rise Up
  • Saul Williams – List Of Demands (Reparations)

This episode is presented by Harry Edwards. The studio engineer for reboot.fm is Franziska Duchemin. The producer is Tom Wills.

Please tell us what you think of the show by emailing radio@theleftberlin.com. Don’t forget to include your name and where you’re listening from, and we’ll read out as many messages as possible on the air.

Don’t miss our next show live on reboot.fm 88.4 MHz in Berlin, 90.7 MHz in Potsdam and online at reboot.fm at 7pm on Sunday 8 May.

You can hear previous episodes of Radio Berlin International here.

Ukraine Invasion – The view from Eastern Europe

Most coverage of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been dominated by views from the West. Here is how the Eastern European Left has reacted


22/03/2022

There has been much discussion about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and many Western leftists have focused on an attack on NATO. This is only in part correct. Those originating from Leftists in Eastern Europe have tended to focus on calling Russian imperialist what it is – imperialism.  The danger of making the Left response only a Western narrative is to ignore the voices of those who are directly affected by the war. For this reason, theleftberlin is publishing here links to a number of articles which have been written by journalists and activists in Eastern Europe.

Our website does not have a single editorial line — on Ukraine or anywhere else. Our aim is to provide a breadth of articles representing the views of the international Left. Our editors and journalists have different opinions. Just like the international left as a whole, we are trying to understand a difficult and dangerous situation. For this reason we do not necessarily endorse all the opinions in the following articles, but believe that they deserve to be read and discussed.

Publishing these articles is intended to open debate, so we are very interested in hearing your reaction. If you would like to respond to any of the articles, please contact us at team@theleftberlin.com. Please let us know if you would like us to publish your response in article format.

theleftberlin Editorial Board

A letter to the Western Left from Kyiv by Taras Bilous

I am writing these lines in Kyiv while it is under artillery attack. Until the last minute, I had hoped that Russian troops wouldn’t launch a full-scale invasion. Now, I can only thank those who leaked the information to the US intelligence services. Yesterday, I spent half the day considering whether I ought to join a territorial defence unit. During the night that followed, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyi signed a full mobilisation order and Russian troops moved in and prepared to encircle Kyiv, which made the decision for me. But before taking up my post, I would like to communicate to the Western Left what I think about its reaction to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

US-plaining is not enough. To the Western left, on your and our mistakes by Volodymyr Artiukh

Do not let half-baked political positions substitute an analysis of the situation. The injunction that the main enemy is in your country should not translate into a flawed analysis of the inter-imperialist struggle. At this stage appeals to dismantle NATO or, conversely, accepting anyone there, will not help those who suffer under the bombs in Ukraine, in jails in Russia or Belarus. Sloganeering is harmful as ever. Branding Ukrainians or Russian fascists only makes you part of the problem, not part of the solution. A new autonomous reality emerges around Russia, a reality of destruction and harsh repressions, a reality where a nuclear conflict is not unthinkable anymore. Many of us have missed the tendencies leading to this reality. In the fog of war, we do not see clearly the contours of the new. Neither do, as it seems, the American or European governments. 

We present this article composed by anarchists in Ukraine to give context for how some participants in social movements there see the difficult events that have played out there over the past nine years. We believe that it is important for people everywhere to grapple with the events they describe below and the questions that those developments pose. This text should be read in the context of the other perspectives we have published from Ukraine and Russia.

‘We need a peoples’ solidarity with Ukraine and against war, not the fake solidarity of governments’

Shaun Matsheza and Nick Buxton of TNI spoke to two activists on the editorial board of the left Commons journal that explores and analyses Ukraine’s economy, politics, history and culture. Denys Gorbach is a social researcher currently doing his PhD in France on the politics of Ukrainian working class and Denis Pilash is a political scientist and activist involved in a social movement, Sotsialnyi Rukh.

Appeal by the independent labor unions of Ukraine

To the workers of the world: we need your help! The Independent Trade Union of Ukraine “Zakhist Pratsi” is directly involved in the resistance to the invasion by Russian imperialism. We are fighting along side the working class and the Ukrainian people on various fronts of resistance. Some organizations of our union, such as the “Zakhista Pratsi” miners’ union at the “Selidov-ugol” firm, are protecting us and our future with weapons in their hands and in the most difficult conditions of the hostilities. Many activists of our union are now resisting the rocket and bomb attacks of the Russian troops, supporting the difficult conditions of the bomb shelters, saving their children and their families from certain death.

The war in Ukraine: no choice but to resist by Oksana Dutchak

The situation is very complicated. During the first days it seemed that Russian military forces were trying not to target civilians. They were trying to destroy the military infrastructure of the country supposing that the government and society would just give up. But this didn’t work. I’m wondering how stupid the intelligence was: their calculation was a total mistake. It didn’t work because the Ukrainian army and people on the ground started to act. It gives some hope, but it definitely changed the Russian army’s tactics dramatically.

“Putin’s Russia is increasingly becoming a totalitarian state” by Greg Yudin

The war in Ukraine is not a local conflict, it is a fight about the future of democracy on a global scale. A conversation on Putin’s imperialism, the anti-war movement in Russia and defiance in the face of state repression.

Enough with the struggle of superpowers. Voices from Central and Eastern Europe

In a recent article in Berliner Zeitung, Michael von der Schulenburg argues that Russia’s deployment of more than 100,000 troops to its border with Ukraine was a direct response to NATO’s announcement that Ukraine could one day become its member. This opinion reflects numerous voices on the Western left – some of them also from German government circles. Russia’s fear for its security is used as the main argument to justify Russian military action. A critical gaze shifts from Putin to NATO,  accused of disturbing the balance of power in Europe with its „expansion” or even „aggression” and of interfering in Russia’s „sphere of influence”

Bulgaria: Between Pro-War Consensus and the Need for an Anti-War Movement by Stanislav Dodov

As the reactions to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have shown, Bulgaria is not ready for a new anti-war movement, despite the urgency of the task. The majority of people with some access to the public space act as if the year were not 2022, but the Soviet Union had just collapsed yesterday, as if we hadn’t lived through a single crisis, hadn’t learned a single bitter lesson, and the Cold War rhetoric couldn’t be shaken. 

The Anti-Capitalist Basis and Potential of the Slogan: “We Want Social Housing, Not Militarization” by Enikő Vincze

Perhaps some will say, today it is not the right moment to talk about such small things as “social housing” while thousands of people are dying and millions are being displaced, or while capitalism and imperialism continue their disaster politics. We are talking about the wider context of how people are sacrificed by imperialist wars everywhere, we are talking about all the political and economic and military actors who are responsible for the current bloodshed, we are trying to understand why this war became possible right now and here.

RUSSIA: Manifesto of the Coalition “Socialists Against War” 

This power was based on the promises of peace and stability, and eventually led the country to war and economic catastrophe. Like any other war in history, the current one divides everyone into two parties: pros and cons. Kremlin propaganda is trying to convince us that the whole nation has rallied around power. And miserable ancestors, pro-Western liberals and mercenaries of the external enemy are fighting for peace. It’s a completely untenable lie. This time the Kremlin elders were in the minority. Most Russians do not want fratricidal war, even among those who still trust the Russian authorities.

Interview with a Russian comrade participant in anti-war actions

We must remember that the main enemy is always at home and strive to ensure that there is no “no war other than class.” Thanks to this, the working people of Ukraine would no longer allow either liberal compradors or Putin’s invaders to power.

Alain Krivine: The May 68 Activist And Lifelong Anti-capitalist Remembered

Obituary of the French socialist Alain Krivine, who died last week


21/03/2022

Alain Krivine (1941-2022), whose activity as a revolutionary socialist spanned 65 years, has died, aged 80.

His paternal grandfather, a Ukrainian Jew, had fled the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian empire. At the age of six months his family was visited by agents of the Gestapo, who are said to have declared of Alain and his twin, Hubert, that they were “beautiful boys”. They were subsequently removed by his parents, who both survived, to a ‘safe’ home in the north of France. His four brothers, who were all politically active, pursued distinguished careers in medicine, science and business; the conductor Emmanuel and the mathematician Jean-Louis are cousins.

Alain joined the youth wing of the Communist Party (PCF) – then an organisation with more than a quarter of a million members – in 1956, when he was only fifteen. It was the year of the Russian invasion of Hungary, Khruschev’s ‘Secret Speech’ denouncing the crimes of Stalin, the Suez Crisis and the hijacking by the French army of the plane carrying the leaders of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN). The following year he was in Moscow to attend a Communist youth conference where he came into contact with emissaries of the FLN who were critical of the Communist party’s refusal to give outright support to the national liberation movement. He was to return to the country several times in later years, helping to set up a Russian section of the Trotskyist Fourth International.

On his return to France, Alain soon clashed with the leadership of the PCF and of the party’s student organisation, of which he was a member. After joining the Trotskyist movement (two of his brothers had preceded him) he continued his activity in the Union of Communist Students until his expulsion in 1966. In the years before Algerian independence in 1962 he was active in Jeune Résistance, an underground network of supporters of the FLN, one of whose tasks was to delay trains taking conscripts to the war, earning the displeasure of the PCF leadership.

Krivine is best known as one of the leaders of the Jeunesses Communistes Révolutionnaires, the organisation he helped create in 1966, during the epic May-June events in 1968. There is a right-wing myth that the movement was essentially a revolt of middle-class youth, conveniently forgetting the general strike by ten million workers. Alain, who was active on the barricades and the march to the Renault factory in Billancourt (where the union and Communist Party cadres ensured there would be no fraternising with rank-and-file workers), knew that the key to overthrowing the régime lay with the working-class. But, as he repeated on many occasions right up to the speaking tour he undertook in 2018 for the movement’s fiftieth anniversary, he also knew that the Communist Party and the CGT union federation, which it controlled, were determined to hold back the struggle, and that they had the ability to do so. The revolutionaries had no ‘plan’ to make a revolution. He recalled a demonstration passing in front the parliament building, which was protected by three policemen: “the idea of taking over the parliament never even occurred to us”.

Amongst the many tributes paid to him were those from Chilean leftists for his support after the military coup of 1973, and from Algerian revolutionaries for his political advice and support

In June 1968, as the revolt subsided, the JCR were banned. Krivine was briefly imprisoned in the ancient Santé prison in Paris. In 1973, the successor organisation, the Ligue Communiste, was again banned after a demonstration against the fascist group, Ordre Nouveau, turned violent. The Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR) was founded a few months later.

While remaining faithful to the aim of building a party rooted in the working class, his organisation, unlike some rival groups who considered them “petty bourgeois”, was open to the new social movements of young people, women’s rights and environmentalist activists, anti-militarist struggles among others. Alain had cut his teeth on antifascism, his parents’ home had been bombed by far-right terrorists in 1962, and he was generous in his support of undocumented immigrants. However, the majority of the Ligue, like most of the French left, were less well equipped to deal with the emergence of Islamophobia, which became a serious issue in France. Krivine was no exception.

The essence of Alain’s politics was anti-imperialism, as well as anti-Stalinism. In 1967, he helped print and distribute a French translation of the Open Letter to the Polish communist party, written by two dissident Marxists, Jacek Kuron and Karol Modzelwski. In February 1968, he was in Berlin to demonstrate against the Vietnam War alongside the students of the SDS and their leader Rudi Dutschke (Krivine would help organise the demonstrations against the Springer press following the assassination attempt against Dutschke in April of that year). He participated as an observer in the Nicaraguan elections of 1984 and 1990. In the 1980s he spared no effort to defend the anti-colonialist movement in the French territory of New Caledonia (Kanaky). In the 2000s he visited Palestine as part of a delegation as well as Venezuela, where he met the Bolivian Evo Morales. He also took part in events organised by the global justice movement in Brazil. Amongst the many tributes paid to him were those from Chilean leftists for his support after the military coup of 1973, and from Algerian revolutionaries for his political advice and support.

Although considering themselves to be a “party of the struggles”, the Ligue did not ignore elections. In the aftermath of the May events, Krivine stood in the presidential election of 1969 while doing his military service, obtaining just over 1% of the vote (by comparison, the PCF, which he considered to be primarily responsible for the defeat of June 1968, obtained 21 per cent). Five years later he obtained even less, while a young bankworker, Arlette Laguiller, obtained 2% for the rival Trotskyist party, Lutte Ouvrière. In 1999, standing on a joint LCR-LO platform with Arlette, they were both elected to the European parliament. In 2004, he was back in his favourite role as full-time organiser and agitator at the Ligue’s headquarters in Montreuil.

There were many setbacks, and a succession of splits but the contribution of the ‘Ligue’ to creating a dynamic, innovative, democratic political culture of the revolutionary left was ongoing. Krivine knew how to encourage younger militants, and he quickly spotted the talent of a young postman, Olivier Besancenot, who obtained over 4% of the vote in the presidential elections of 2002 and 2007. This was to be a highwater mark in terms of electoral politics.

Responding to the rise of opposition to neoliberalism and the strikes and mass demonstrations in 2006 in which school and university students joined forces with unions to force the government to withdraw a law creating a new, precarious contract for young workers, Krivine and the majority of the Ligue took the risky step of disbanding into a new formation, the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA). The party claimed 9 000 members, making it probably the largest organisation of the far left in the developed world. It was an ambitious plan which assumed that Besancenot’s popularity could be translated into a new type of party and that waves of struggle would attract a new generation of activists.

The potential undoubtedly existed. The French working-class and young people had demonstrated remarkable combativity since the great public sector strikes of 1995, and many more struggles were to come (despite declining union membership), but this did not lead to a growth in revolutionary organisation. The NPA, while continuing to recruit a layer of young people, saw its membership decline rapidly, and those who stayed were divided between a number of factions, something which had long plagued the LCR.

The NPA was also upstaged by the formation of Le France Insoumise, the party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who obtained 19.5% in the 2017 presidential election, compared to just over 1% for the NPA’s candidate, car worker Philippe Poutou. Undoubtedly the success of Besancenot in 2002 and 2007 and the continued decline of the Communist and Socialist parties encouraged the NPA’s members to believe, in their words, that they had a “boulevard” before them. This turned out to be an illusion, resulting in part from underestimating the attraction of left reformist, as opposed to revolutionary politics. A decade after the foundation of the NPA, Krivine could characteristically admit that “we messed it up”, but, as always, “the fight must go on”.

He would be the first to volunteer to carry out the humblest organisational tasks… Alain was a very human revolutionary

Despite mistakes, the LCR/NPA has made a significant contribution to keeping the revolutionary, internationalist tradition alive – and not just as a club for “survivors”. Krivine’s party will be present once more in this year’s presidential election, though it is to be feared that its candidate will fail to attract more than a tiny proportion of voters. In this period, without exception, Alain Krivine was present, leading, encouraging and sometimes reprimanding comrades, in the spirit of “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”. Even as illness overtook him, he was still an inspiration.

A committed Marxist, Krivine is not known as a theoretician, and the list of his publications is short (this role was played by his close friend, Daniel Bensaïd, and others). He was above all an activist, a charismatic speaker, a formidable debater, and no task was too small if it helped build the organisation. In later years, when I knew him, he was a stalwart of the LCR (and later the NPA) in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis – then a stronghold of the PCF – where he asked for and received no special treatment, despite his aura of ‘grand old man’ of the far left. He could be found in the town centre every Sunday morning, selling the party’s paper, Rouge (later L’Anticapitaliste), and amiably greeting local residents. When debating tactics and strategy he was less accommodating, as I once found to my cost – though I was unimpressed by his arguments.

However, he was never a ‘star’. It is indeed extraordinary how often two adjectives come up in tributes from comrades who knew him well – ‘modest’ and ‘kind’. He would be the first to volunteer to carry out the humblest organisational tasks, and his first thought was often to put at ease the newest or youngest recruit or offer to help a comrade in difficulty. Alain was a very human revolutionary. He also had a nice line in anecdotes and jokes: on one occasion, just after the death of Bensaïd, I asked him about the number of Jews in the organisation when it was founded. He replied by saying that the joke at the time was that there were two factions on the central committee – the Ashkenazi Jews and the Sephardic Jews.

There is a saying that it is normal to be a revolutionary when you are young and a conservative when you are middle-aged. It is true that many, but far from all, of Krivine’s best-known contemporaries and comrades on the radical left would leave revolutionary politics to become successful academics, politicians, media personalities or even neo-conservative ‘intellectuals’. Alain himself would never abandon his belief that “Another world is possible”. When he published an autobiography in 2006 it was called “Ca te passera avec l’âge”, which could be translated as “You’ll get over it, son” or “You’ll grow up one day”. It was another example of his humour and playfulness. He never did “get over it”, of course. Nor, contrary to the myth, did the majority of those who took to the streets in 1968 – though few had the willpower to dedicate themselves so single-mindedly to the cause.

Alain Krivine is survived by his wife Michèle, his daughters and grandchildren. A final march of friends, family and comrades accompanied him today to the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, where he is in good company.

Respect, comrade : « Ce n’est qu’un début, continuons le combat ! »

Colin Falconer was a member of the same local committee of the LCR/NPA as Alain Krivine. He is currently a member of Ensemble!

We didn’t expect that our forum to help refugees in Berlin would be so successful

Ukrainian socialist Taras Salamaniuk talks about anti-capitalism, the anti-war movement in Ukraine and Russia, and how you can concretely help refugees from Ukraine  


20/03/2022

Q: Hello Taras. Thanks for talking to us. Could you start by telling is a little bit about yourself?

A: I’m originally from the Western part of Ukraine, from a city near to the Polish border. It’s a rather conservative, and religious region. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union it has moved in a nationalistic direction. I studied sociology in Kyiv and connected with activists in the student trade union, and engaged in direct action. This was around 2010-2011. From anarcho-syndicalism, I became a Marxist. And then Maidan came.

Q: There was a lot of confusion in the West about Maidan. Some people called it a left-wing uprising, some saw it as Fascist. How would you categorise it?

A: I would say that it was neither Leftist nor Rightist. It was a popular uprising increasingly dominated by the Svoboda party and other far right groups. We clearly saw that although the far right did not participate in a lot of protests, they were the most visible. Repression and street violence against the Leftists prevented their profile.

They managed to bring down the Lenin statue in Kyiv and other cities. After that it was about the Ukrainian language. They were quite successful – although Svoboda lost in the election. But they allowed discourse for pro-Maidan people, contributing to splitting Ukraine into anti-Maidan and Maidan.

They were able to do this because the core of the Maidan agenda was just an anti-authoritarian one. Of course it was also about integration into the Euro, but for the people on the streets, the first protest was more about anti-authoritarianism.

Their visible involvement, fueled Russian media propaganda which underlined the involvement of Nazis at the protests. As the liberal opposition in Ukraine did not distance themselves from the far Right, this furthered the split, which continued until the current war.

Q: So, three months ago, before Putin’s invasion, what was the political landscape of Ukraine?

A: Three months ago, Zelensky was quite a weak president. He won the presidency with an impressive majority – the first absolute majority in modern Ukraine, avoiding a coalition government for the first time. But then a lot of people were disappointed that he didn’t manage to deliver on his promises, especially on his promise of peace.

There were hints of a comeback of former president Poroshenk. In the second round of the previous elections, Zelensky had crushed Poroshenko. There was a hint that Zelensky was losing support. People were also getting disappointed and moving out of politics.

There was also some repression against the so-called “pro-Russian opposition”, which was stronger in the traditionally Russian speaking part of Ukrainian society. One of the opposition leaders, Victor Medvedchuk, who named Putin as godfather to his daughter, was put under house arrest. The pro-Russian opposition had a little support but was quite oppressed and lost support after the annexation of Crimea and the Donbass conflict. People who might have voted for them just moved out of Ukraine.

Ukraine politics was at a dead end. Previously there had an equilibrium between the pro-Russian and pro-European camps. This was no longer the case.

Q: Was there any sort of internationalist left wing opposition outside these camps?

No. First of all, the so-called pro-Russian faction is more left wing in economical questions. They are against strong pro-market reforms. They are not really leftists, but they’re a bit social democratic. In contrast, the pro-European camp is rather neo-liberal. 

Polls from three or four years ago show that Ukrainians don’t want to be described as Leftists, to be seen like a Soviet. At the same time, they support some of the central demands of the Left such as the nationalisation of key sectors or a progressive tax system. It is quite paradoxical .It is even more complicated as the Svoboda party is far right, but their economic programme also calls for the nationalisation of key industries.

However, in cultural terms, both the pro-European and pro-Russian camps are conservative. Maybe a bit less among the pro-Europeans, but a lot of them are still homophobic, and so on.

The internationalist Left groups are quite marginal, mainly centred around Kyiv. Most people move to Kyiv for education.. There is a Leftist community of about 1000 people.

In 2010 the Left was more or less united. But then, especially during Maidan, they split into different sections. This was still so three months ago.

I was part of a social movement, to found a workers’ party in connection with an independent trades union. But it was unsuccessful and then tried to help individuals with labour relations. Their main demand was to freeze the conflict.

Another group, more intellectual based (known as The Reds) embraced the Soviet identity more and tried to speak to the original pro-Russian, Russian-speaking camp. They argued that the conflict should not be frozen but resolved and that Ukraine needed to embrace the Minsk agreement and reintegrate Donbass. This argument about freezing the conflict or reintegrating Donbass was a line which split the Left.

Q; So, if I understand it correctly, towards the end of last year we have a pro-European ruling party which is losing support, a pro-Russian opposition, and a tiny Left which is mainly based in Kyiv. And then Putin invaded. How did this change Ukrainian politics?

A: It wasn’t so much pro-Russian politics that were gaining support but the pro-nationalistic politics of Poroshenko. The pro-Russia position was stagnating, due to repression and loss of electorate. They were also splintered and couldn’t agree on how to build a united front against the other camp.

Regarding the invasion, one could say that Putin miscalculated. He probably thought that it was a perfect time to invade due to the political dead end in Ukraine. The brutal force of the invasion shocked me. The vast majority of people in Ukraine was shocked.

Zelensky acted as the president of a country should. He is a bit of a showman but this served him quite well in these times. Every day he makes a video message promoting morale across the country and the vast majority of people have united under his banner against the Russian invasion.

Some of the Left joined the militia in Kyiv where they got rifles and they’re ready to defend Kyiv against the Russian troops. Another Leftist faction opposes the invasion but has remained quite silent. At the beginning they also tried to criticize Ukrainian actions but then – maybe due to some threats, I don’t know – they just stopped and now remain silent.

The same for the so-called “pro-Russian” opposition – who mainly remained silent. There was a demand by Putin that one of the “pro-Russians” Yuriy Boyko should become prime minister, but Boyko very quickly said he wasn’t interested, saying he doesn’t have anything in common with Putin. The mayor of Odessa, Trukhanov, also has a pro-Russian reputation but is now saying that they are defending Odessa to prepare against a Russian invasion. I can’t think of any politician who would publicly saying anything in support of Putin.

This has consequences for local Leftists. Although they didn’t support Putin and some supported Ukrainian self-defence efforts, it’s still dangerous for some of them to remain in the country.

Someone I know, Alexander, was active in anti-Maidan but was targeted by police and some local militia who were originally part of the local Nazi scene. Attacked in his own house, he was tortured, his head was shaved, as was that of his wife. They were beaten up then he was taken to jail. They are accusing him of treason. It’s horrible.

It’s also very difficult to organise his defence. It’s hard to find a lawyer who is able and willing to defend him. If you say now that there are also some Nazis in the militias, you will be accused of helping Putin and his talk of “denazification”.

Q: We’re now getting news reports that German Nazis are now going over to fight. Do you have any information?

A: I don’t have any specific information but I also heard this, it’s quite logical. They have had connections with the Azov battalion. The movement around Bilesky, the leader of Azov is connected with Der Dritte Weg and other organisations, so he’s a real Nazi. But one should say that of course Russia has their own Nazis, and in Donetsk and Luhansk they are also using Nazi brigades in their battalions.

I think that it will be very important to criticize this Nazi involvement after the war ends. Especially if Ukraine is going to be accepted as a member candidate to the EU. What we as Leftists in Germany and the EU can do is put public pressure on our national governments that the Ukraine government examines these cases of torture; to fire Nazis from all official positions that they currently hold in the army; and to withdraw all government funding that they enjoy now.

All this should be done, but of course for people like Alexander who are now facing prosecution, it could be too late. Maybe they will torture him further, or maybe even kill him using the war as a pretext. This is a real danger.

Q: Let’s move onto Germany, because we’re in Germany. What should the German government do and what shouldn’t it do? What are your demands?

A: We don’t have any demands for governments. But I think that all people in our diaspora of Ukrainian Leftists in Berlin would all support sanctions – preferably an oil and gas embargo rather sooner than later- to hit the Putin régime hard. As it’s getting warmer, maybe Germany won’t  be dependent on Russian gas imports.

About weapon exports I would agree with Gregor Gysi responding to Sahra Wagenknecht and other former Putinversteher [ “Putin understanders”] in die LINKE. Now, they are of course opposing Putin’s invasion but they think that we need to blame both sides. I support Gysi because it’s important that the German and international Left should acknowledge and honour the right of Ukrainian people to self-defence. For Ukrainian people to carry out this right, they need some support.

I don’t like the patriarchal belief that adult men can’t leave the country because they all need to fight, while the women should leave with the children. I also don’t like it that some war criminals would be freed from jail to fight. But in general I think that there is an enthusiasm of people to fight and defend their livelihood and their cities against invasion.

After Maidan, no part of the country wants to be part of Russia – see the videos from Kherson and other Southern cities currently under Russian occupation. All across Ukraine people are willing to defend their country and they should get support.

Q: What sort of support?

A: Now, lethal weapons should also be considered. The main thing to do is just stop the aggression and stop the invasion. But the support should be balanced. It’s not only about lethal weapons. It’s about medicine, it’s about humanitarian help. All options should be on the table.

I’m also thankful if people are willing to help civilians, make donations to charities in Ukraine, helping old people and children who are especially affected by this war. All these are important. All little steps help.

Q: In terms of stopping the war, do you have any contact with the anti-war movement in Russia?

A: Yes we do. A comrade of ours, Sasha, is on the border of these two groups. She’s originally from Ukraine, but grew up in Russia. Five or six months ago, she moved to Berlin, but she’s also an active member of a socialist movement in Russia, especially in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Sasha helps us with our initiative Host Ukrainians and is also organising protests. She has a very important function, as these harsh new laws in Russia, have heavily criminalised all opportunities to criticize or organise protests. From outside Russia, she’s free to post in social media. They also have a call centre to help people who are currently under arrest because of the protests.

This is a very important job, but it’s a thankless one. I really appreciate their effort. It is the only way to remain moral, as a human, to protest this absurdity. But there is such a level of oppression making a lot of people in Russia just afraid.

Now it looks like they are damned to be crushed by the régime. This all could change due to sanctions. Russian society could get fatigued. This is a difficult trade-off for activists: to oppose this absurd war but to remain intact. Maybe you need to go underground and become a partisan guerilla group. They still try to remain legal but it has become more challenging each day.

We really appreciate what Sasha is doing, but as Ukrainian Leftists we don’t know how we could help. We honour their attempts but we don’t know what we can do.

Q: You mentioned Host Ukrainians. Can you say something about the work you’re doing in Berlin for Ukrainian refugees and how people can help you?

A: As activists, we come from different regions of Ukraine. Most of us moved to Berlin to study. We organised events, some public some private, to discuss Ukraine.

Host Ukrainians’ was the most serious initiative. On the first day of the war, we made a call to meet together. We were all shocked and met in my flat. This idea emerged to make a forum for people in Germany who could offer some space.

We reached out to our German contacts. I have been in Germany for 7 years. We all have political contacts. We didn’t expect it to be a huge success, but the next day, we had 100 answers. Now we have something like 1,000, and a quite impressive database of people willing to share their flat with Ukrainians. Especially in Berlin, but we also have people in other cities like Leipzig and Dresden. We are also looking for new people, so if somebody can offer accommodation, we are interested.

We want to accommodate Ukrainians temporarily. To be a bridge when there’s already a lot of refugees, but official institutions haven’t yet managed to accommodate them. So, our database has Ukrainians looking for a place and one with Germans offering somewhere.

Sometimes it takes a few days, sometimes a few hours. We may need to accompany people who are outside Ukraine for the first time not knowing German or English. Some people have special needs like medicinal support, children, etc. The first couple of weeks will be the most difficult time and we try to make our small contribution to help to accommodate people.

There are a lot of other initiatives, but ours is special because we have a special relationship with the German Left. It’s not a big secret that the mainstream Ukrainian diaspora are mostly anti-Communistic. This makes it hard for them to address German Leftists who already in 2015/2016 managed to establish quite impressive networks to help Syrian refugees.

Q: Do people need to be able to speak a certain language to help?

A: We don’t care what language they speak – English, German or whatever language you have. But we are looking for volunteers who speak Russian and English in order to translate. In Ukraine, only five, ten, maybe fifteen per cent know English. German even less.

Evangelical and Lutheran churches are accommodating people, and today I got three requests to translate. In seven years it is the first time my Ukrainian skill is in demand. (laughs)

It’s a really busy time and we are all volunteers. We don’t have the plan to formalise it, but we have free time and want to help. It is important to be active for two-three weeks accommodating people, and we hope that then Berlin and Laender will react to build the necessary capacities.

Q:If somebody wants to help either host people or translate, how do they best get in touch with you?

A: Volunteers to translate can send an e-mail to host.ukrainians@gmail.com. If you know Ukrainian or German it is even better, but if you can translate Russian-English that’s ok. If you can accommodate people, you can fill out this form. This provides the structure to help us process the offers.