Kavita Krishnan, Indian civil rights activist and former long-time member of the Indian Communist Party, has written something that astutely captures a large part of the international Left’s reaction to the Russo-Ukrainian war.
It’s less true for the liberal left, but still the case for many on the Marxist hard left. Her article in today’s The Hindu, “Multiple bullies at work, our to create a ‘multipolar world,'” expands on it (and the title captures the argument well; see below for the article). In a Facebook post yesterday she wrote the following:
If Zelenskyy were Chavez, he would be a hero for the left all over the world. Instead we have some on the left giggling at what they think is his humiliation. While others are silent, scrambling to come up with a line that won’t require them to say they were dead wrong for the past three years.
They insisted the conflict in Ukraine was between unipolar West vs Multipolar Russia & Rest where the latter was the lesser evil “regardless of their regressive character”. Today when the thugs ruling the two “poles” joined up to bully a brave Ukraine, they are confused but can’t admit they’re wrong (the left “Bro” culture can never say they were wrong).
The Ukraine war and the rise of the illiberal multipolar world order (with Trumpist West as well as Putin, Xi, Modi etc as “poles”) will be the stuff of history books of the future. The left will cut a sorry figure – a clueless and complicit one – in those books.
“Regardless of the internal character of competing global powers, a multipolar world is certainly more advantageous to progressive forces and movements worldwide in their quest for reversal of neoliberal policies, social transformation and political advance.” – this quote from an Indian Left leader in the immediate wake of my leaving his party over Ukraine sums up the Realist folly of the left globally.
I was asked to leave my party of 30 years for predicting this very moment where two poles would beat up on the scrappy fighter of a democracy that’s Ukraine. Was told that I couldn’t remain in the party if I wanted to defend and cheer for Ukraine’s right to armed resistance.
Decent people everywhere in the world cheer Ukraine’s courageous resistance to two fascist bullies. The left is silent, trying to find a way not to.
(This article was amended slightly on March 3, to incorporate Krishnan’s op-ed.)
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