From the League for a Fifth International on Ukraine.....

[socialist_n_TN]

A long read, but a good one. Basic Bolshevism here:

http://www.fifthinternational.org/content/support-ukraine%E2%80%99s-workers-self-defence-against-kyiv-government-and-its-fascist-allies

Interesting that the Bosnian uprising going on at the same time is ANTI-nationalistic.

[TBF]

1. More - Trotsky on Ukraine (London Review of Books)

Trotsky on Ukraine
The Editors 3 March 2014

Trotsky on ‘The Ukrainian Question’ in Socialist Appeal, 22 April 1939 (via Counterpunch):

The Ukrainian question, which many governments and many “socialists” and even “communists” have tried to forget or to relegate to the deep strongbox of history, has once again been placed on the order of the day and this time with redoubled force…

In the conception of the old Bolshevik party Soviet Ukraine was destined to become a powerful axis around which the other sections of the Ukrainian people would unite. It is indisputable that in the first period of its existence Soviet Ukraine exerted a mighty attractive force, in national respects as well, and aroused to struggle the workers, peasants, and revolutionary intelligentsia of Western Ukraine enslaved by Poland. But during the years of Thermidorian reaction, the position of Soviet Ukraine and together with it the posing of the Ukrainian question as a whole changed sharply. The more profound the hopes aroused, the keener was the disillusionment. The bureaucracy strangled and plundered the people within Great Russia, too. But in the Ukraine matters were further complicated by the massacre of national hopes. Nowhere did restrictions, purges, repressions and in general all forms of bureaucratic hooliganism assume such murderous sweep as they did in the Ukraine in the struggle against the powerful, deeply-rooted longings of the Ukrainian masses for greater freedom and independence ...

- See more at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/03/03/the-editors/trotsky-on-ukraine/#sthash.wUVCCUs1.dpuf

[socialist_n_TN]

2. Thanks TBF. In some cases........

the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The roots of this problematic area are DEEP! And they're STILL victims of competing imperialisms. The League's prescription (a third way BETWEEN the imperialisms) and a true workers' government beginning with a dual power situation in the east later spreading to the west, will be a difficult go. But it will be the only way for the Ukrainian people to benefit in either part of the country. The other solutions, although more likely, will result in worse outcomes for the people. Being ruled by European oligarchs or Russian oligarchs backed by their respective empires, will be MUCH worse than trying to go it alone.

What I personally do in a complicated situation is to try and break it down into component parts and then prioritize those parts. Using that same methodology here, I would say there are two priorities here and now. Organize the workers' and neighborhood councils, then organize militias FROM those councils for self-defense against the fascists. Fighting the fascists would be job one, but the organization of the councils would be the most effective way TO fight the fascists.

[TBF]

3. Very wise words -

"Organize the workers' and neighborhood councils" - that's where it starts no matter which oligarchs/fascists we're dealing with.

[socialist_n_TN]

4. Yep, my comrade.........

That's it in a nutshell.