NATO, Russia and the Hard Left

The problem that the Moscow-adjacent Left has in this country is that Russia’s actions always demolish their arguments. This was notoriously true in the days of the Soviet Union. In fact the antics of the gangsters that have far too frequently inhabited the Kremlin got so extreme by the late 1960s that European communists, at least those who were not Trotsky fanboys or Mao groupies, had to refashion their Marxist beliefs into Eurocommunism. These people could not in all intellectual sincerity justify and defend the USSR’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, and this was at a time when the USA was being pilloried for the Vietnam War. Instead they opted for a form of neutralism.

It therefore has to be borne in mind, whenever a leftist is attacking Western involvement in Ukraine, that the person represents the residue of leftism — let’s call it the Hard Left — that remains after better people have walked away in disgust from their previous affinity to Russia in the wake of numerous crimes against peace and civil society that the USSR and then the Russian Federation have committed over the last century. Unlike Germany, Russia has failed to launch a self-examination over the state-induced famines, massacres, gulags, purges, and pogroms that are provably a characteristic of implementing Marxism as government policy. The main reason for this is that Russia has not been militarily crushed, so that its crimes could be assessed by an external power and duly punished. The only crime exposed by an invading force was the Nazis’ discovery during Operation Barbarossa of the Katyn massacre of Polish officers and intelligentsia. By this time Russia was allied to the USA and UK, and so the matter was suppressed until long after the war.

At present the Hard Left in this country is demanding that Russia withdraw troops from Ukraine, but they also want the West to stop supplying Ukraine arms, such as the highly-m effective HIMARS precision-guided rocket artillery that seems adept at killing Russian generals behind the lines. The Hard Left also regard a compromise peace as the only possibility in the current war. All of these are cloaked demands for a Russian victory. Russian troops would be withdrawn as part of a compromise peace if Ukraine accepts the loss of territory. The Hard Left are never challenged over their tacit demand for Russian victory because they always avoid serious debate with anyone who disagrees with them. They have nothing to say about Russia’s illegal annexations. This refusal to engage on an even platform gives these extremists an undeserved credence.

There is, however, one charge made by the Hard Left that appears superficially impossible to refute. This is over the “expansion of NATO” to the point where this military alliance now reaches Russia’s borders. The Hard Left charge that at the same time that the Warsaw Pact was dismantled, NATO should also have been abolished. There is even a dedicated organisation called “No to NATO”, populated by the usual suspects. By having numerous “peace movements”, it appears to the casual observer that there is a strong anti-militarist movement in this country. There is not. In fact the same people will populate all of these movements. They are in effect one movement with numerous names. In fact the complaints over the expansion of NATO are a sham and are also as much an amplification of Russian policy as is the Hard Left’s call for a compromise “peace” in Ukraine.

The important difference between NATO and the Warsaw Pact is that membership of the latter was never voluntary. The countries of communist Eastern Europe were always, in one way or another, slave states of the USSR. There were the minor exceptions of Yugoslavia and Albania. But since neither of these communist countries was aligned to the West, the Kremlin could be relaxed about their open dissent, as they were over Romania. Since this was the personal fiefdom of Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, and they owed their position to Moscow’s influence, his contrariness was accepted.

If other countries tried to deviate from the Moscow line, they knew they would be invaded by the USSR, and they were. The exception here is Poland. Had the USSR invaded in 1981, as the Solidarity trades union gained influence at the expense of the dictatorship, it is likely that the Polish Army, irrespective of what their commanders wished, would have resisted invasion from Russia in battle. General Jaruzelski’s military coup d’état, known as “Martial Law”, was the only viable solution to Moscow’s dilemma, allowing Poland to invade itself to restore what could pass for order in a communist dictatorship.

The mistake that is always made is to regard NATO as in any way comparable to the Warsaw Pact, as if they were mirror images. They are not. Countries apply to join NATO as a free choice made by their governments. There are conditions attached, regarding forms of governance, human rights, and the resolution of certain internal and external disputes. These countries may at any time withdraw from NATO if their peoples elect a government whose policy it is to do so. At no time prior to 1989 could any government in any Eastern European country withdraw from the Warsaw Pact.

Another mistake the campaigners make is to regard NATO as having territory into which it has expanded. This is simply not true. NATO has no territory. There are countries that are members of NATO, and that is all. Using a map to define NATO’s spread is bogus. NATO should not be regarded as a unified or federalised territorial entity like the Russian Federation. The Hard Left have previously used Sweden and Finland as models of how European countries can operate without there being a need for NATO membership. But this argument has now been destroyed, since both countries are now on a fast track to NATO membership — due entirely to Russian aggression and their desire to be protected from it.

The Hard Left also place great weight on a verbal commitment given by an American official (Secretary of State James Baker) during talks over German reunification about NATO not expanding “one inch eastwards”. But this remark is irrelevant. Relations between countries are moderated by treaties and other forms of documents, not by the words of one official to another during a discussion. If the USSR/Russia wanted something in writing regarding the political future of Eastern Europe, then a second conference on co-operation and security in Europe, succeeding the Helsinki conference of the early 1970s, could have been convened and a new treaty drawn up. There was time enough to do this during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin during the 1990s. At the time, the Hard Left was completely silent on this, being focused on anti-capitalist demonstrations at G7 summits.

The common factor that all of the countries have that joined NATO between 1989 and 1999, with the exception of Slovenia, was that they had been raped by the USSR during the previous half-century. The collapse of the Soviet Union did not guarantee that it would be replaced by a reformist regime based on Western principles of the rule of law, and it was reasonable for these victim states to have a collective security guarantee after Russia’s economy recovered from its Marxist-induced depths. The rise of the Putin dictatorship validated this stance.

The most militarily aggressive state in Europe since the fall of the USSR has been Russia. While the Russian invasion of Ukraine is by far the most newsworthy act of aggression, Russia has been participating in numerous civil wars and insurgencies on its periphery for the last twenty years, and whichever side she has backed has won and gained territory at the expense of an established government. It is not unreasonable for the Baltic countries that were illegally annexed and ethnically cleansed by the USSR in the 1940s, as well as other former Warsaw Pact countries, to look to NATO for protection against this clear trend of Russian aggression.

The Hard Left in this country are adept at missing out important facts whenever they make an argument, hoping to recruit support amongst those who take what has been said at face value. They derive strength from ignorance, and regard defeat anywhere at the hands of Russia as an acceptable form of peace. NATO stands against Russian aggression, so it is not too surprising that this defensive alliance is the focus of their hostility.

When the Hard Left demand an end to NATO or denounce its “expansion”, all they are doing is Vladimir Putin’s bidding. Nothing more.

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