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Looks more like reduced than revamped. They must be having a bad time of it. Or those doing the work of maintaining it are getting tired. Pity really, as the forums were (sometimes) quite useful even good even if populated by some nasty and dishonest anti-SPGB anarchists.
A fuller description of the political party bans
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/21/why-did-ukraine-suspend-11-pro-russia-parties
This article should be given the widest possible publicity as it completely refutes the propaganda that the Ukraine state is fighting for “democracy”, “Western values”, etc. The Econonist Intelligence Unit refuses to classify Ukraine even as a “flawed democracy” but only as a “hybrid” between a flawed democracy and an authoritarian regime. This move will mean it goes down a few more notches in that direction.
Zelensky likes to address other state’s parliaments but one state whose parliament he hasn’t addressed is Ukraine’s. That would be a bit embarrassing as the places for a main opposition party with a tenth of the seats and nearly a fifth of votes cast would be empty.
Here is another key passage:
“After the Euromaidan revolution, and Russia’s hostile actions in Crimea and Donbas, however, the pro-Russian camp was marginalised in Ukrainian politics. And at the same time, the pro-Russian label became very inflated. It started to be used to describe anyone calling for Ukraine’s neutrality. It has also started to be employed to discredit and silence sovereigntist, state-developmentalist, anti-Western, illiberal, populist, left-wing, and many other discourses.”
What is ironic (very ironic in fact in view if Barys Johnson’s gaffe) about this is that by the sounds of it as “sovereigntists” some of the banned parties take the same position as the Brexiteers in Britain. But to take an anti-EU position in Ukraine gets you banned.
Yes, we will definitely mention this in the Socialist Standard. Part of the previous English translation will have been made from a German or French translation, so this version, all translated from Russian, will be more accurate.
Confirmation from CNN that it is the Azov Battalion that is holding out in Mariupol at the expense of the lives, limbs and houses of the population there:
“Captain Svyatoslav Palamar, of the National Guard Azov Regiment, said he and his fellow fighters would not surrender in Mariupol.”
“Moscow’s humanitarian promises cannot be trusted, according to Pyotr Andryushenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, and the city is not going to stop defending itself, he said.
“We will fight until the last of our soldiers,” Andryushenko told the BBC.”I don’t know how influential this adviser is but let’s hope that this is just rhetoric and that the mayor has some other, level-headed advisers and that their views prevail. Surely there must be some in authority there who realise what “fighting to the last soldier” will mean in terms of more destruction, more deaths, more bodies lying unburied in the streets.
It is really upsetting what is happening to those who cannot leave Mariupol, because it is so unnecessary for it to continue. But their fate cannot be blamed entirely on the besieging Russian forces. The civil administration there and the defending forces must share responsibility. When it became clear a week or so ago that the military position was hopeless they could have declared Mariupol “an open city”. See the examples here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_city
Instead what we are seeing is the Charge of the Azov Brigade with the remaining civilian population in front of them. It’s not magnificent but it is war.
I am not sure it would be a good idea to let Boris know. It might give him the idea of banning all Remain parties on the grounds that they are traitors and collaborators with the EU against British “freedom”.
Meanwhile more Ukrainian style democracy:
“On Sunday, the Ukrainian leader signed a decree that aims to unite all national TV channels into one platform, citing the importance of a “unified information policy” under martial law.”
I don’t think that Putin has gone so far as banning opposition parties represented in Parliament. Ok, he has prevented some standing for parliament but then at least 4 parties, including the “Communist” Party of Ukraine, had already been banned in Ukraine.
It would be interesting to get the full list of the additional 11 parties that the Zelensky regime has just banned.
Found the list here:
https://www.ukrinform.net/amp/rubric-polytics/3434673-nsdc-bans-prorussian-parties-in-ukraine.html
Opposition Platform – For Life, Sharij’s Party, Nashi, Opposition Bloc, Left Opposition, Union of Left Forces, Derzhava, “Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialist Party of Ukraine, the Socialists, and Volodymyr Saldo’s Bloc.
Democracy Ukrainian style:
Zelenskyy suspends parties with Russian links
Ukraine’s president has ordered to suspend the activities of 11 political parties with links to Russia.
The largest of them is the Opposition Platform for Life, which has 44 out of 450 seats in the country’s parliament. The party is led by Viktor Medvedchuk, who has friendly ties with Putin, who is the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter.
Also on the list is the Nashi (Ours) party led by Yevheniy Murayev.
“Given a large-scale war unleashed by the Russian Federation and links between it and some political structures, the activities of a number of political parties is suspended for the period of the martial law,” Zelenskyy said, adding that “activities by politicians aimed at discord and collaboration will not succeed.”
Killman ! That does seem a not inappropriate misspelling in the circumstances.
At least he only called you an appeaser and not a fascifist as Orwell would have. He just doesn’t get it and can’t see the difference between a state and its subjects.
The so-called “right to national self-determination” is an incoherent concept as it assumes the pre-existence of a “nation” when whether nations exist and what they might be is precisely the point at issue. In practice is the “right” of a particular grouping of capitalists to have their own state. Why should socialists support that?
The hunt for “traitors” in Ukraine is on, including appeals to inform on neighbours for names to be passed on to the secret police:
Boris (he needs to change that name to its Ukrainian equivalent, Barys or whatever it is) the Buffoon has just revealed what he thinks the “freedom” is that we are told the Ukrainian state is fighting for:
“In his speech to the Conservative spring conference in Blackpool, Johnson said it is the “instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom”, with the Brexit vote a “famous recent example”.“
In their next phone call he needs to warn Zelensky not to apply to join the EU as that would be to lose its “freedom” to a nasty European super-state. Putin might well second that emotion.
But of course nobody takes seriously what he says any more than they do the Foreign Secretary, Liz la Gaffe, who can’t disguise her hope that the peace talks with Russia fail so that Ukraine can fight Russia to the last Ukrainian with NATO-supplied weapons.
A warning on where the Western capitalist block pumping weapons into Ukraine could lead:
After the war is over and Russian troops withdraw from most of Ukraine there will a rich vein of anti-Russian feelings that Ukrainian ultra-nationalists will be able to exploit.
But do you think that Biden is not really a religious believer either but just a cynic whose real religion is American greatness? In other words, is not possible to be a genuine religious believer and the head of a capitalist state? Couldn’t Putin really be a religious nutter?
So the Bolsheviks succeeded in neither clearing the capitalists from the Earth nor gods from the skies.
More on Putin’s religion and his belief in “Holy Russia” here:
The breakaway Ukrainian Orthodox Church also (of course) claims descent from Vladimir the Rus who converted all his subjects to Christianity in Kiev. Only they call him Volodymyr.
Incidentally, as Zelensky’s mother tongue is said Russian his real name will be Vladimir. At least he’s probably an atheist not a religious nutter like Putin seems to be.
