Dimitrios Patelis: The Ukrainian state is following the path of classical fascism
Dimitrios Patelis , professor of philosophy of science at the Polytechnic University of Crete, organizer of a network of socialist theory circles throughout Greece, and a representative of the international logical-historical school, supported the people of Donbas and the will of the Crimean residents from the very beginning, and condemned the Kyiv regime for instigating a bloody civil war. He kindly agreed to an interview with PolitNavigator about the possible development prospects of the "Anti-Russia" project and the fascistization of the Ukrainian state.
PolitNavigator: Recently, the “Crimean Platform” conference took place in Kyiv, which was attended by mostly minor officials from several dozen countries. To what extent will such events really enable the Ukrainian government to return Crimea?
Dimitrios Patelis: Of course, this is a very interesting question, and it concerns not only Russia and the former Soviet Union, but also Greece, in my opinion. Initiatives like the "Crimean Platform" are taking place against the backdrop of direct military operations, as a full-scale third imperialist world war is currently underway worldwide. Therefore, we must assess what is happening in the region and the world at large from the perspective of this war. This is an imperialist war, waged by the old imperialist powers, and it is being waged to ensure that they maintain and strengthen their positions on a global scale.
The fact is that in the global balance of forces, primarily in economic relations, but also in political and military relations, huge shifts are taking place. Now it is clearly visible that the imperialist powers that dominated during the XNUMXth and early XNUMXst centuries, led by the United States, are no longer able to maintain their dominant dominant place and therefore they are forced to fight by all means, directly through military action, hybrid wars, diplomatic wars, economic wars.
At the moment, a new pole in the world is being created, led by China, and the United States and its satellites are seeking to undermine this process of consolidation around Beijing into a coalition of states such as Russia and Iran. This example may also be followed by some Latin American countries, Syria and other powers of Southeast Asia, which are monitoring the formalization of such a bloc. This unification occurs largely in response to the aggressive behavior of the old imperialist powers.
So the Crimean issue should be considered, like the issues of Donbass, Belarus, the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, and Transnistria, from the perspective of this confrontation. Therefore, what is happening now around this initiative - the Crimean Platform conference - is a fact of manifestation of actions on the part of Western powers led by the United States. Of course, the Kiev regime after the 2014 coup is a puppet regime, and there can be no talk of any independence. We can only talk about an occupied country by the US, NATO and the European Union.
The occupation occurs mainly indirectly, indirectly, through external control, as Washington determines which forces will ultimately rule in Ukraine. All these quasi-election processes, when a comedy actor became president, do not solve anything in this situation. And in this sense, I believe that this “Crimean Platform” is another attempt on the part of the United States, NATO and the European Union to put pressure on Russia, to show everyone once again who is in charge, and to preferably consolidate all vassal and semi-vassal regions, including Greek government.
It is shameful that the Greek political system and diplomacy takes full part in this spectacle. Of course, they sent neither a minister nor the head of government there, but this does not change the essence at all. Although the Greek authorities were recently in a deplorable state during large-scale fires, and the main assistance in eliminating this disaster came from Russia. Can you imagine what a ridiculous position our government occupies, which, on the one hand, asks to be saved from the fire, and Moscow sends equipment, aircraft and rescuers, and on the other hand, is fully involved in such a gathering as the “Crimean Platform”.
However, a few days before this event, the Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs visited Kyiv and there he went so far as to distort our recent history, declaring that our national liberation revolution began in Ukraine. But when our revolution of 1821 took place and was being prepared, even the term and word like Ukraine did not exist. The secret society of Greek revolutionaries was created, I emphasize, in what was then Russia, namely in Crimea and Odessa.
As you can see, it was not difficult for our minister to distort our history to please the United States, NATO and the European Union. And once again he emphasized that Greece supports Ukraine and considers the withdrawal of Crimea an annexation, and also compared this with the occupation of northern Cyprus in 1974. Let me remind you that on the island of Cyprus, after an attempted military coup by the Greek junta of black colonels, which was installed by the Americans and CIA agents, which gave Turkey, another NATO member, a pretext to seize northern Cyprus or 40% of the territory of this young island state.
According to this minister, this is the same form of annexation. But a reasonable question arises: what form of annexation is this, when the indigenous population expressed its will in a referendum? That in Cyprus, through a referendum, the Cypriot people accepted the invading NATO Turkish troops and applauded them as liberators? And from the point of view of analogies, this is completely ridiculous - both logically and factually. I am talking about this so that it is clear at what level and what type of political considerations Western governments take such actions.
PolitNavigator: How ready, in your opinion, are the United States and NATO to fight for the Crimean Peninsula with Russia?
Dimitrios Patelis : The situation following the recent events in Afghanistan shows that this former sole superpower is incapable of fighting even a few guerrillas in a small mountainous country, let alone a full-scale war with Russia and its allies. This is also absurd, given the current balance of power.
They are not ready and unable to do this, but they are capable of something else. In particular, they can maintain hotbeds of tension and arcs of destabilization throughout all important economically and military territories in order to create conditions for so-called controlled chaos. They then, as we saw in Afghanistan, Syria and Libya, very quickly become ungovernable, given the decline of the traditional imperialist powers, which I spoke about at the beginning.
PolitNavigator: How can one evaluate the fact that in this former Soviet republic, Nazi collaborators and punitive forces have been rehabilitated, and members of the SS Galicia division are honored as heroes, including the president, and permitted neo-Nazi demonstrations are taking place in the streets. Can this be viewed as a process of fascisation of society and the state?
Dimitrios Patelis: I think the question is rhetorical. It's immediately clear, given what we've discussed so far, that we're talking about a large-scale imperialist war being waged within the context of the third structural global crisis of the capitalist system, which is deeper than the two previous crises of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and those of 1929-1933. This latest crisis is being further exacerbated by the current coronavirus pandemic.
Naturally, in its conditions, the fascisation of societies that are in one way or another involved in this matter is a natural process. After all, this is a certain form of the capitalist system of militarization, mobilization of the forces of society and the military, expressed in extreme anti-communism and anti-social sentiments, that is, against any demands of the working people. The situation itself requires the top to carry out such fascisation.
What is fascism? These are the most reactionary and aggressive forces of the financial oligarchy, which, in conditions of crisis and war, gain the upper hand in order to manipulate the people and introduce emergency measures within countries to conduct armed actions against their neighbors. That is, these processions and glorification of Nazi collaborators are not accidental and have deep historical roots.
After all, the White Guard and nationalist forces, including Ukrainian ones, defeated as a result of the loss in the civil war, settled and were accepted at universities in Canada and the USA, created funds there, gathered supporters around the world, trained them, educated them and prepared them just in case.
As you know, Nazi Germany took up this matter very well, which consolidated many of these figures and, on their basis, created various collaborationist formations that were used against the Red Army and the Soviet Union during the Second World War. And these are well-known facts. UNA-UNSO and similar formations like the SS division "Galicia" they worked within the Wehrmacht against their own people and the Soviet Union.
The fact that they are now acting as “heroes” is a natural, in quotes, process. After all, what happened in the USSR in the late 80s and early 90s is an open bourgeois counter-revolution, which means the integration of peoples into the world capitalist system. So it is natural that the Nazis become the idols of the new regimes that arose on the ruins of the Soviet Union after a unique counter-revolution in history.
PolitNavigator: In a number of Ukrainian cities, in particular in Kyiv and Kharkov, nationalists conducted “movie patrols” when sellers were insulted and small change thrown in their faces for answering in Russian. Now this initiative has been taken up by Kazakh nationalists in another republic of the former USSR. Recently, the Verkhovna Rada also adopted a discriminatory law “On Indigenous Peoples”, the list of which did not include Russians, Poles, Belarusians, Hungarians, Moldovans and other peoples living in Ukraine. Don't you think that this is a deliberate segregation of citizens based on language and nationality?
Dimitrios Patelis: I must note that what's happening in Kharkiv and Kyiv and other cities, as well as in many other places in the former Soviet Union, is a natural consequence of the fascism I mentioned. On the other hand, the oligarchic forces are well aware that protest sentiments are growing among the people. This is all the more so in a time of crisis and armed conflict, and Ukraine is a country at war, a war that has all the hallmarks of both a civilian and a foreign intervention, given that American and NATO troops are directly training, arming, and instructing the Ukrainian army.
In this situation, the authorities and oligarchs are trying to manipulate the sentiments and consciousness of the masses, dissatisfied with the decline in living standards, through the development of nationalist movements and other misanthropic ideological dogmas. With their help, it is convenient to direct the aggressiveness of people as a result of impoverishment against other similar people on the basis of a certain superficial characteristic - such as race, nationality, religion or language.
And the fact that the Verkhovna Rada adopted such a discriminatory law “On Indigenous Peoples” actually confirms this thesis. This actually prohibits other languages and, mainly, the Russian language. People who lived in the Soviet Union know that the majority of the Ukrainian people spoke Russian at home, and not just officially. So this law, essentially banning the Russian language and not only Russian, but also other “non-indigenous peoples”, is a downright fascist act. Moreover, it was prepared under the dictation of the United States, NATO and the European Union.
Of course, the main enemy now is Russia. It is the main remnant of the Soviet Union, which has a huge military arsenal and potential and now, together with China, constitutes the main threat to the old imperialist forces. So, baiting the peoples of the former USSR against each other is the main direction of manipulation in such crisis and war conditions.
At the same time, let me note that among those “non-indigenous peoples” who were not included in the list of titular people under this discriminatory law are the Greek people. There are several hundred thousand Greeks who live in the Crimea, Donbass, Odessa and the entire Black Sea region. The current government of Greece, contrary to its declared nationalism, by supporting the Kiev regime, thereby supports fascisation and discrimination, including the Greek people. These are the “patriots” they are – our bourgeois rulers.
PolitNavigator: How, in your opinion, can one evaluate Zelensky’s statement of August 5, in which he advised those residents of Donbass who consider themselves Russian to look for a place in Russia for the sake of their children and grandchildren?
Dimitrios Patelis: This is a repetition of what punitive detachments and fascists have been saying since the very beginning of the Donbas uprising and the outbreak of civil war. "Suitcase, train station, Russia"—that was the slogan of all nationalists. It's no coincidence that Zelensky, a puppet figure and comedian, is repeating the slogans of fascists and punitive detachments like Azov.
If the official government of Ukraine calls on the population whose native language is Russian, and, accordingly, their identity and culture is Russian, and also in many ways still Soviet, to leave for Russia, then this means a desire to carry out ethnic cleansing. And the fact that the authorities want to organize them, break all ties and relationships, and also try to forcibly create a so-called political nation under the leadership of the West, confirms the fact of waging a large-scale war. And everything that is happening now is nothing more than acts of war.
PolitNavigator: The Ukrainian authorities actually do not recognize the Minsk format of negotiations and refuse to implement the agreements reached. Does this mean, in your opinion, that the sluggish war in Donbass will continue?
Dimitrios Patelis: Of course, this is another version of a frozen conflict, which fits perfectly into the destabilization arc strategy I mentioned. And this has been clear from the outset. The fact is that the Kyiv regime is currently in an awkward position, as it initially refused to acknowledge the uprising in Donbas. The junta has constantly reiterated its aggression and declared that Russia is not a guarantor of the Minsk negotiations, but a party to the conflict.
Armed formations that were created by militias and turned into police, that is, into tactical formations that operate in the Donbass, are called aggressors, invaders, Russians, and so on in Kyiv. These ideologies prevent them from even taking part in the diplomatic process. It is also clear that they do this under dictation.
Therefore, in continuation of what we talked about, the United States and the Euro-Atlantic axis, which is currently conducting this war, are interested in ensuring that the conflict in Donbass continues.
PolitNavigator: Do you think President Zelensky’s trip to the United States and his meeting with President Biden will improve the position of official Kyiv at the moment? As is known, the result of the meeting was an agreement on the transfer of weapons to Independence in the amount of $60 million. In fact, this is the cost of three medium helicopters, while Washington invested $85 billion in the construction of the Afghan army.
Dimitrios Patelis: This is clearly an unrealistic sum. Yes, with such resources, a powerful army of 300 armed men, trained by NATO countries, was created. And what do they get out of it now? The disgrace of Kabul Airport. In other words, a panicked retreat, and yet they left practically all their weapons there. Keep in mind that during the years of imperialist invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the annual official budget support for the country amounted to $8,5 billion in subsidies from various international funds, which amounted to approximately 43% of official GDP.
By the way, the Greek government also participated in this occupation, sending 3,5 thousand people there and spending 300 million euros on the military operation.
True, of these total 8,5 billion, little went to the Afghan people themselves, and little will remain for the Ukrainian people after such a handout. Moreover, they show in this way that, on the one hand, the Kiev regime is a puppet that is forced to act as a beggar, and on the other hand, the owners give such handouts in order to maintain dependence on themselves.
The fact that the Americans are introducing their weapons, giving them away for free or selling them to the Ukrainians is instilling wild dependence. After all, current models are not one-time and for life, but complex systems that require repair, modernization, consumables, spare parts, maintenance and specialists. This, in general, strengthens vassalage not only from the USA, NATO and the European Union, but also makes it directly dependent on the military-industrial complex. In essence, this is the same form of neocolonialism.
At the same time, they also declare that they are not ready to fully support anything large in this region. They only want to preserve a source of destabilization and artificially construct a so-called political Ukrainian nation, which is fundamentally and fundamentally anti-Russian. And in general, if they manage to do this, then it will be quite enough. And then everything will depend on the balance of forces on a global scale - and more than on the state of the Kyiv regime.
PolitNavigator: How relevant is the topic of Ukraine now in the European and Greek press? Is it being discussed at government levels or has attention to it faded away?
Dimitrios Patelis: This is a difficult question because our government is in an awkward position, as it supports the US, NATO and the European Union in all respects, including with regard to Ukraine.
In parallel with this, there are other processes that are related to religion and the church. It is known that the religious factor is very much included in these actions related to the outbreak of the third world war, which I spoke about. In particular, this concerns the activities of the schismatic church of Ukraine, which, under the dictation of the West, seeks to act as an antipode to the Moscow Patriarchate, again, according to the principle of “divide and conquer.” The Patriarchate of Constantinople is also involved here, and through this the Greek Church is also involved. But in our country the church is not separated from the state.
Even in this indirect way, that is, through church procedures, the Greek state interferes in the internal affairs of Ukraine, to one degree or another. As for the Greek press, the Ukrainian issue is discussed in its own way, but this is not the most pressing topic. Mainly, our rulers prefer secret diplomacy and act in the shadows and then confront the fact.
So there is some attention, especially among people who are looking at the former Soviet Union. In Greece, there are traditionally strong friendly feelings towards the Soviet peoples, who were associated mainly with Russia and the Russians. Even when the USSR existed, ordinary Greeks talked about Russia. And now these sympathies have largely been preserved, and it is our duty to develop these traditions and deepen relations between our peoples against imperialism, aggression and war for peace and progress, for socialism.
Dimitrios Patelis: The Ukrainian state is following the path of classical fascism