the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jan 20, 2025
The following is excerpted and translated from the January 10, 2025 issue, #2945 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
… In this war, Ukrainian soldiers serve as cannon fodder in a conflict between Western imperialists on one side, the Russian state and its oligarchs on the other.
In fact, almost 1,500 soldiers out of a Ukrainian brigade [of 2,500] deserted, including a few dozen on French territory, as soon as they arrived in France [to receive military training]. Many had in fact been forcibly recruited, as is now the practice in the Ukrainian army.
Television showed images of Ukrainian state troops hunting men of all ages in the streets to forcibly conscript them and send them to their deaths on the front. A father of three testified that, in theory, he should be exempted, but that this would not be enough to stop the state in search of cannon fodder. He explained that he had no desire to be killed for nothing: “At the start of the war I would even have wanted to enlist, but today this war no longer makes sense. It has to stop.”
This is what the warlike speeches of the clique of politicians and bought-and-sold intellectuals are worth. They never stop explaining that the Ukrainian population must continue to sacrifice itself for the profit of its oligarchs and Western companies, but more and more, the Ukrainian people are expressing their refusal to see their men killed at the front.
This problem is posed not only for the Ukrainian population but for the Russian population as well, which is suffering a similar fate.