Rifts in the communist movement

The Ukraine war has divided communists around the world. The worst position is that of the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) which calls it “Putin’s war” and demands an unconditional Russian withdrawal from Ukraine – which is also NATO’s demand . They also denounced what they called “Russian military adventurism” in a joint statement the CPB sponsored that only attracted the support of nine other communist and workers’ parties.

CPB election leaflets in the May local elections all carried the following statement "Communists opposed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine from the first hour. Putin and his cronies are opposed to Socialism and Communism. They stole what belonged to the Russian people. We say: Stop the war, Start the peace".

It didn’t do them any good. Five of their seven candidates got less than a hundred votes apiece. The others got the majestic sums of 119 and 126 votes. The CPB’s Blackheath Westcombe hopeful was beaten by the Official Monster Raving Loony candidate by 125 votes to 79.

Communist Party of Greece

A more significant section of the movement led by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) argues that Russia is an imperialist country and that the war is simply a quarrel between two imperialist blocs. This is a view rejected outright by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) that leads the opposition in the Russian parliament and is the largest communist party in Russia. The second biggest, the Russian Communist Workers Party (RCWP), which does think Russia is “imperialist”, nevertheless supports the Russian intervention in support of the people of the Donbas.

In March the KKE sponsored a joint statement that said “the decision of the Russian Federation to initially recognise the “independence” of the so-called “Peoples’ Republics” in Donbas and then to proceed to a Russian military intervention, which is taking place under the pretext of Russia’s “self-defence”, the “demilitarisation” and “defascistisation” of Ukraine, was not made to protect the people of the region or peace but to promote the interests of Russian monopolies in Ukrainian territory and their fierce competition with Western monopolies”.

The New Communist Party of Britain (NCP), along with the majority of the members of the Solidnet group it was sent to, including the CPRF and the RCWP, refused to sign it. But some 40 others did.

In April the Secretariat of the Communist Initiative (ECI) , a KKE-inspired European communist forum, issued a draft statement for May Day to the same effect. A number of parties, including the NCP and the RCWP, proposed amendments which forced the Secretariat to water-down the final statement.

But a few days later the Secretariat issued a statement for Victory Day on 9th May without any consultation that said “the Second World War, like the first one and the current war in Ukraine, is a result of imperialist contradictions and competition for the redivision of markets and spheres of influence. The people pay a heavy price for the condemnable Russian invasion of Ukraine, like the previous US-NATO-EU interventions that led to it: dead and wounded people, refugees, extremely expensive energy and fuel, and high prices”. This has led to the resignation of the Hungarian Workers Party from the Secretariat.

Meanwhile the KKE has launched public attacks, in their daily paper and online, on the stand of the CPRF and the RCWP in support of the Russian intervention which have been rebuffed in equally robust terms by the leaderships of both Russian parties.