Please note that this is an old entry, drafted in early 2024 but left unpublished until now. It is being added to UKR-TAZ in order to be readable as an archived piece. That said, very little has changed in the global situation since the interview was conducted — which says something in itself.
The Belgian analytical review Politique has published an excellent and wide-ranging interview with Ukrainian historian and left-wing activist Hanna Perekhoda. The interview covers many of the angles on the Russo-Ukrainian war that UKR-TAZ has covered over the last few years. It’s in French. Here are some excerpts, in translation. (The translation is mostly Google’s, with occasional corrections of my own.)
On the shared interests of the anti-authoritarian left in Ukraine and Russia:
Here’s what I just sent to Bread & Puppet Theatre, which is preparing to appear alongside a group of others protesting U.S. military support for Ukraine, in Burlington, Vermont, tomorrow. The group organizing this event is small and not very consequential, but Bread & Puppet’s participation, or at least that of some of their members, is troubling. While I agree with their views in favor of negotiation and diplomacy to end the war, I disagree that it’s the U.S. that needs to be pressured into negotiation and diplomacy. It is Russia that needs far more pressure to end its invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine, as the victim, needs support. (Note that the list of links is taken from the right-hand sidebar of this blog. I welcome your suggestions for other links to be added there.)
Having just returned from a year in Berlin to my quasi-home in Vermont, I was struck by how quickly the Russo-Ukrainian war has come home with me. Twenty-five minutes up the road from the place where we are summering (before moving into a new home for this coming year) is the home of Bread and Puppet Theatre, a long-time countercultural institution known and loved by many of my fellow Vermonters. Just today, the New York Times published a lovely piece on Bread and Puppet and its founder, 89-year-old puppeteer and breadmaker Peter Schumann.
I have long loved the artistry and aesthetic of Bread and Puppet, as well as the way they have carved out a space in Vermont’s civic life while regularly updating their countercultural roots with their creative critique of militarism, capitalism, and the powers-that-be. They have stood true to their principles for close to six decades now, and certainly since moving to Vermont in the early 1970s. So I was saddened and disconcerted to hear about Peter Schumann’s take on the Russo-Ukrainian war, and that their current summer pageant refers to Ukraine as a “puppet state.” For the millions of Ukrainians fighting for their lives and for their homeland, that characterization is not only deeply offensive; it boggles the mind. You don’t expect pacifist puppeteers to be expressing support for genocide.
This week they are hosting speaker CODEPINK’s Medea Benjamin, whose views on the war exemplify this kind of U.S.-blaming and Russia apologism, or “Westsplaining” as East Europeans call it. (Other Leftists call them “Tankies,” in the long tradition of justifying Soviet tanks in Budapest and Prague, and now Russian tanks in Kyiv.)
I’ve prepared a “fact sheet” offering rejoinders to Benjamin’s and her companions’ arguments, which are more or less shared by Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Jeffrey Sachs, Werner Wintersteiner, and other old-school anti-U.S. leftist “Westsplainers.” I plan to bring copies of it with me to Bread & Puppet, and am sharing it here for anyone who finds it useful. You can read it and download it here (click on this sentence).
For some of the ties between these people and organizations that whitewash China, Iran, and Russia, among others, in favor of blanket condemnation of the U.S., see this article in New Lines Magazine. As I’ve argued before (and restated in point 12 of the fact sheet), for anti-imperialism to be genuine, it must be anti-all-imperialisms and not a one-sided anti-my-imperialism-but-fine-with-all-the-others.
I’ll also be bringing the poster shared below, created by New Hampshire artist Bill Brown on promptings I sent him a few days ago. Both the fact sheet and the poster can be shared if you find them useful.
(This post was amended slightly, and a lightly modified poster substituted for the original one, on August 18.)
