Ukraine: Which Side Are You On?
Left-wing Democrats need to stand up for international law
Imagine an alt-history of the Spanish Civil War where, after some initial reversals, the anti-fascist side starts winning. They drive back Franco’s armies largely because France, Britain and the USA reject “non-intervention” and send in heavy weapons, offsetting the support coming from Hitler and Mussolini.
In this scenario, does anyone seriously think the global left would have pulled its support for the Republican side because of “imperialist aggression”? Would they have denounced the Spanish conflict as a “proxy war”. Would they have convened an international conference calling for the end of all arms supplies to the anti-fascists in the name of “Peace”? Would they have called for negotiations with Franco, advocating a settlement “acceptable to all”?
You might hope not. But when it comes to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, parts of the international far left have done all these things and more.
Nowhere is this more damaging than in the USA, where the influential left organisation the Democratic Socialists of America managed to bounce 30 Democratic lawmakers into “peace” initiative in October, at the exact moment the Republican right was trying to erode Congressional support for US arms to Ukraine.
