Workers worldwide have a big stake in the courageous struggle waged by working people in Ukraine to defend their country’s independence and defeat Moscow’s invasion. But the people of Ukraine may have a “peace” settlement forced on them that leaves much of Ukraine under Russian occupation by Washington and other imperialist powers who put their own national interests over those of Ukrainian freedom fighters.
Whatever the result, working people in Ukraine will continue to fight to win back all the territory seized by the Putin regime. They will aid fellow countrymen mounting resistance under Moscow’s boot. Today they face attacks on two fronts — from Moscow’s murderous assault and from the capitalist Ukrainian government that is using the war to attack political rights and the labor movement.
The Russian government is weakened. Its army suffered heavy losses in a war Putin believed would be a pushover. Workers in Russia — in and out of uniform — are seeking ways to defend themselves from a regime that has nothing but contempt for their lives, demanding more sacrifices from them and their families. Openings exist to forge bonds of unity and common struggle between workers in Russia and Ukraine against the Putin regime and its war.
Moscow’s war marked a new stage in the growing capitalist world disorder. Capitalist powers everywhere are rearming and reassessing their alliances in preparation for new and more deadly conflicts. The boss class is accelerating efforts to dump the spreading economic and social crisis of their system on the backs of workers and farmers.
Our future is in the hands of the working class — the only class that is capable of stopping imperialism’s march toward fascism and war. Key is building a party of our own, a labor party, that fights uncompromisingly against capitalist exploitation and oppression. Workers need such parties in Ukraine, Russia and worldwide.
The Socialist Workers Party is “presenting an independent working-class foreign policy,” SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes said in a statement for the party’s National Committee. “A foreign policy that starts from the interests of the toilers at home and internationally.”
“Working people must see the necessity of taking political power into our own hands — as toilers did in Cuba at the opening of the 1960s, following a popular, workers-and-farmers-based revolution — or we will face a future of social devastation, reaction, world war, and even nuclear catastrophe.
“Join us in this effort to raise an independent working-class voice in the United States.”