[Marxism] Michael Parenti on demonizing Milosevic

[dwalters@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Louis wrote:
>>You don't seem to have gotten my point. Let me repeat it. Although
Ukraine was far more oppressed than Kosovo, Trotsky called for a
*Soviet* Ukraine. This was necessary because some Ukranian nationalists,
very likely the dominant faction in the republic, were extremely
reactionary.

>>When a nationalist movement took shape in the Ukraine after Stalin's
monstrous assaults in the late 1920s, it was almost inevitable that it
would have an anti-Soviet character. The OUN (Organization of Ukrainian
Nationalists) was formed in 1929 and modeled itself after the Russian
populist groups of the 1870s. They combined terrorist tactics such as
assassination of Bolshevik officials with liberal and Christian pieties.<<


Louis,
 I think you ought to re-read Trotsky's writings on this issue. Contrary to
your position, ALL of Trotsky's writings in the 1930s on Ukraine were in
response to Hugo Oehler, who attacked Trotsky for *not* raising the demand
of "For a Soviet Ukraine". Of course, Trotsky's position is not quite that
either, more nuanced, but attaked those who mandated, and confused, the
democratic tasks and the socialist ones, even "under socialism". IT was Oehler
who put forward the arguement not to support Ukraine independence unless it
stood for socialist property relations. Trotsky opposed this mechanical
approach. One of these articles is available at:
http://marx.org/archive/trotsky/works/1939/1939-ukraine.htm

Secondly, the OUN wasn't the only Ukrainian nationalist organization to rise up
in the 1930s/40s period. The URP was another such insurgent group, and was anti-
fascist as well as anti-Russian. Ukrainian response to the mass murder of it's
peoples in the 1930s and the Nazi invasion, like most responses to similiar
situations more highly nuanced than you make it out to be. For a very good
discussion, check out the Revolutionary History archive at:
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backissu.htm

As far as I know it's the only place where all these issues come to head and
are discussed.

When RH published the writings of the left split from the OUN in the early
1990s, it caused a 'split' with the Spartacists who defended Oehler's views
over that of Trotsky (and were quite upfront about it as it happens). Some of
this discussion and the issues over Ukraine are detailed in these back issues
of RH.

Comradely,

David Walters

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