{"id":2246,"date":"2025-11-01T21:30:52","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T01:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/?p=2246"},"modified":"2025-11-01T21:30:53","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T01:30:53","slug":"rymbus-open-letter-to-zarah-sultana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/2025\/11\/01\/rymbus-open-letter-to-zarah-sultana\/","title":{"rendered":"Rymbu’s open letter to Zarah Sultana"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Galina Rymbu<\/a>‘s “Open Letter to Zarah Sultana<\/a>,” ex-Labour MP and co-founder with Jeremy Corbyn of the new British left-wing political party Your Party<\/a>, reads like a long letter from the Ukrainian left (certainly a large segment of it) to that poorly informed swath of the western left that continues to mouth platitudes blaming NATO for this war and seeking to ultimately placate Russia. (Irish president-elect Catherine Connolly is, unfortunately, the latest clear addition<\/a> to that swath.) The letter trods over themes readers of this blog will be familiar with, and adds some more. Either way, it’s good to share with your leftist friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rymbu<\/a> writes about growing up as a working-class leftist and feminist in Russia, facing discrimination far exceeding what she has seen in eight years living in Ukraine; about the inauthentic Russian and Ukrainian influencers (like Alexei Sakhnin, Sergei Khorolsky, Andrei Konovalov, and some others associated with Mir Snizu<\/a>, Union of the Post-Soviet Left<\/a>, and Borotba) whose messages are all-too-readily embraced by old European leftists; and about the many reasons both to learn more about the Ukrainian left and to support Ukrainians’ struggle for self-determination from neo-imperial Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the latter, for instance:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Historically, all Ukrainian leftist political cultures differ profoundly from the imperial, Bolshevik, and Stalinist ones. The Ukraine of\u00a0Ivan Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, Mykhailo Drahomanov, and Nestor Makhno still exists. And it\u00a0continues in\u00a0the Ukraine of\u00a0Davyd Chychkan<\/u><\/a>, Marharyta Polovynko<\/u><\/a>, and Artur Snitkus<\/u><\/a>. In\u00a0the Ukraine of\u00a0Maksym Butkevych<\/u><\/a>, Artem Chapeye<\/u><\/a>, Vladyslav Starodubtsev<\/u><\/a>, and other comrades who are now resisting Russian aggression and building broad, horizontal networks of\u00a0leftist international solidarity with Ukrainian anti-authoritarians<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Ukraine is unknown and incomprehensible to most Russian leftists \u2014 and to those Ukrainians who now act as their prot\u00e9g\u00e9s and \u201cdependents.\u201d This is an Ukraine with strong anarchist traditions of self-organization and radical democracy \u2014 traditions that always survive, despite occupations, colonizations, crises, and internal conflicts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u00a0believe that any international dialogue about resistance in\u00a0Ukraine and about the possibilities of\u00a0military and political support from abroad should begin with a\u00a0story about these traditions\u2014and about those who are fighting for them right\u00a0now. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The full letter can be read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Galina Rymbu‘s “Open Letter to Zarah Sultana,” ex-Labour MP and co-founder with Jeremy Corbyn of the new British left-wing political party Your Party, reads like a long letter from the Ukrainian left (certainly a large segment of it) to that poorly informed swath of the western left that continues to mouth platitudes blaming NATO for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdPO21-Ae","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2246"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2249,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246\/revisions\/2249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}