by Gregor Spitzen
[REGNUM] For a long time, there was a conventional wisdom in the West that all European left movements are pro-Russian by definition and unequivocally support Russia in all its foreign policy initiatives. They have been doing this allegedly as a tribute to tradition and out of political inertia ever since those memorable times, when the Soviet Union really stood at the forefront of social transformations and generously supported European sympathizers of the socialist sense with hard currency and a kind word.
However, experts and political scientists who share this point of view have completely forgotten that it is not 1973, but 2023. Communism, thanks to Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev and his associates, who by chance found themselves at the helm of the state machine, committed suicide more than 30 years ago.
Modern Russia has become a capitalist state with a significant lack of ideology, which is directly spelled out in the Russian Constitution. China, which has not previously been particularly active in political expansion and export of ideas, has revised its position in relation to private property and the exploitation of man by man, heading for constructive cooperation with the West.
Thus, the left movement in the early 1990s was dealt a blow of monstrous force. And quite imperceptibly from that time on, the “leftist” agenda in the world political discourse began to be replaced by the leftist one.
Unfortunately, many experts and politicians in the West, which, for example, includes former US President Donald Trump , do not understand in principle how the leftists differ from the leftists.
If the former stand up for the rights of workers, against private ownership of the means of production and the restriction of the rights of big capital, then the political agenda of the latter is an endless revolution with a pronounced anarchist bias in defense of the supposedly humiliated and insulted under the slogan “Select and divide!”. For example, the BLM movement, which advocates for the rights of blacks in the United States, is typically leftist in nature.
After 1991, the resulting balance of power on the left side of the political spectrum shifted significantly towards the “leftists”, who attracted passionate youth with simple and understandable slogans, without requiring a deep study of the works of Marxist-Leninist theorists.
“For the rights of minorities!”, “In defense of the discriminated!”, “Against the strong in defense of the weak!” - such slogans are simple and understandable for a person with a warm heart and a heightened sense of justice. And at the same time, they do not require an ultra-high level of education and brain activity from the adept.
Alas, there is a great danger in the lack of education and the lack of systems thinking. Following the "call of the heart", such an activist often does not notice how he loses moral guidance, actually turning into what he once fought against. And we see many examples of this in modern Ukraine, where many leftist activists from all over the world flock under neo-Nazi banners, trying to support “a small, weak country subjected to unmotivated aggression from its big neighbor.”
So, for example, according to the German newspaper Junge Welt, in April, leftist activists who fought in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine died near Bakhmut - 26-year-old former US Marine Cooper " Harris" Andrews , convinced that he was fighting against the "fascist regime" in the Kremlin ; the Irish Finbar Kafferky ; Russian Dmitry Petrov and other foreigners.
Petrov was one of the founders of the Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists (BOAK), responsible, in particular, for attacks on railway lines in Russia. An anarcho-communist fighting in the ranks of an army openly professing neo-Nazi ideology against "fascists in the Kremlin"? Although, according to the author, this case requires more psychiatric than political analysis, we leave the reader the right to form his own opinion on this issue.
Interestingly, according to Dmitry Korchinsky , the former leader of the fascist UNA-UNSO *, the anarcho-anti-fascists were members of his sabotage battalion "Brotherhood" *.
“When they joined the Brotherhood, they had strange leftist beliefs ,” Korchinsky wrote about Petrov, Kafferki and Andrews on Telegram. “In the Brotherhood , they learned to respect the faith and love the Lord. They took part in religious services . "
These three fighters are obviously not the only leftists who went over to the side of the Nazis. Thus, the Antifa militant Yuri Samoylenko , who also joined the BOAK, served in the 6th separate battalion "Right Sector" * and was revered by his comrades after he died in a battle near Kharkov.
Russian anarchist Sergey Petrovichev , who died in the same places at the same time, turned out to be a real fascist, posing in a T-shirt with a poster of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) * and taking pictures hand in hand with famous militant neo-Nazis and supporters of the Galicia SS division. Petrovichev was also often surrounded by "White Rex" Denis Kapustin , head of the pro-Ukrainian so-called "Russian Volunteer Corps" * responsible for the recent raids on Belgorod.
Antifa and other left-wing radicals joined neo-fascist groups like Azov* only because they were the most accessible - such is the common narrative of justification of leftist thugs on the pages of European media, serving at the same time as an attempt to rehabilitate Ukrainian neo-Nazism.
It would seem, how can Antifa activists serve in the same regiment with hardened Nazis? Yes, it's very simple! Indeed, in an immature head, in which fundamental knowledge, an analytical mind and critical thinking are replaced by slogans, it is very easy to change the polarity from plus to minus. Therefore, it is hardly possible to condemn those sensible European politicians and ordinary people (fortunately, there are still some) who look at neo-Nazis and Antifa militants with the same contempt and ill presentiment.