Steve Sweeney interviews Boris Litinov, head of the Donetsk republican branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
Topics discussed range from Comrade Litinov’s views on the split in the international communist movement over the war in Ukraine, his thoughts on the effect of western propaganda on the communist and trade union organisations in Britain, and on why the workers in the Donbass fight so fiercely against their foe.
He notes that the Communist party issued a call for a united antifascist front against the Nato-led nazification of Ukraine in 2022, well before the launch of the special military operation. Defending this position, he explains that “a call to fight fascism is the duty of all communists” – with fascism in Ukraine being represented by the Ukrainian nazis fighting on behalf of global imperialism.
Comrade Litinov stresses that the Donbass has a long and proud communist tradition. During the Great Patriotic War, there was a slogan: ‘Communists, forward!’ Explaining that this slogan resounds to this day, he firmly believes that, if there are facists on workers’ doorstep, the communists will always be the first line of defence.
Asked whether he is aware of the lines of Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) on the proxy war in Ukraine, as well as the position of many trade unions in Britain, Comrade Boris expresses sympathy; these organisations, he says, have fallen victim to the one-sidedness of western propaganda and have lost the ability to see clearly.
The KKE characterises the conflict as an ‘interimperialist war’, and the CPB has gone to great lengths to distance itself from what it describes as a ‘Russian invasion’ for ‘Putin’s war’, following Stop the War‘s demand of ‘Russian troops out’.
