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
Jul 1, 2024
This article is translated from the May 31 issue, #2913 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
On April 25th, Bogdan Syrotiuk, a Trotskyist militant with the Young Guard of the Bolshevik-Leninists, was arrested by the Ukrainian political police, the SBU. He has been held since in a high-security prison in the city of Mykolaiv, in the South of the country.
Bogdan’s political tendency, the International Committee of the Fourth International, made it known that he was accused of publishing texts “sponsored by a Russian propaganda agency.” The Zelensky regime thinks nothing of offering implausible accusations against those who oppose them in the name of communism, Trotskyism, the October Revolution, and who, during this war, defend the community of interest of the workers of Russia and Ukraine. For Kyiv, these ideas and positions are forbidden by law. They may mean 15 years in prison for Bogdan Syrotiuk.
The imperialist powers have tried hard to paint the Ukrainian government, which they arm to fight Russia, as democratic—this regime which tolerates no voice speaking about the class struggle or socialism. They pitilessly hand years in prison to those who deface monuments erected in honor of Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian Nazi leader of the ’30s and ’40s. Kyiv has in fact made a national hero out of this man, Bandera, who massacred Jews, Poles, Russians and communists.
All political persecution of socialist and communist militants in Ukraine must cease. Free Bogdan Syrotiuk NOW!