Considerations on Russia, Ukraine and Certain Left-Wing Thinking
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a watershed moment in European history. It is a clear attempt to rebuild walls and iron curtains across Europe, reversing the momentous changes that took place in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. That was an epoch-changing event, which ended a 40-year long Cold War between a democratic and capitalist West (Western Europe plus the USA, Canada and Japan) and a Communist world which included dozens of countries on several continents, under the ideological and military leadership of the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union collapsed, communist parties all over the world were left in a state of crisis. Communist regimes collapsed, and in democratic countries, Communist parties had to adapt to the new reality, most of the time disbanding, joining other political movements, or mutating into broader-based progressive political formations. The few that survived have mostly stayed as small, marginal movements largely isolated from the mainstream left. More bro