A Response to Our Critics

In the August 4, 2022 issue of Portside “Tidbits” several readers criticized our article “Ukraine and the Peace Movement” that was reprinted in Portside on July 29. One reader called our piece a “viciously rightwing article” and other readers accused us of apologizing for U.S. imperialism. One critic wrote that he takes political leadership in international affairs from Cuba, as perhaps he did when Fidel Castro supported the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. We believe in thinking for ourselves rather than taking political direction from any government.

Let us set the record straight. We agree with our critics on many points. We are both longtime, lifetime socialists and anti-imperialists who have opposed U.S. intervention abroad since we first became active around opposition to the U.S. war on Vietnam. We opposed the U.S. wars in Central America and the invasion of Iraq. Like our critics, we believe that the United States remains a rapacious and dangerous imperial power and that NATO should be replaced with structures of common security.

Yes, we know that there are far right organizations in Ukraine, but there are also socialists and an independent labor movement that while fighting Putin also resist Zelensky’s neoliberal, anti-labor legislation. To a few of our critics, who seem to be sympathetic to Russia, we would point out that Putin is an autocrat who has created a regime where political opponents are jailed and labor organizations coerced.

Where we disagree with our critics is that we insist on the right of the Ukrainian people and their nation to fight to defend their independence against the Russian invasion, occupation, and attempt to dismember their country. We believe that supporting Ukrainian self-defense means supporting their right to receive arms wherever they can. We stand with the former Russian colony against imperialist Russia, as we stood with Vietnam against the imperialist United States. It is not a rightwing position to support the resistance to imperialist aggression.

Dan La Botz and Stephen R. Shalom