Two leaflets from the Ukraine (2001)

Blogger's Note:

Blogger's Notes, as a rule, are usually appended to the bottom of an article or a review but unfortunately this is a special case where they have to be pinned to the top of the page.

A wee bit awkward this one, but as the blog is primarily concerned with ensuring that all of the Socialist Standard is online, this has to be included. To cut a long story short the International Young Workers was a fictitious organisation that was set up by members of the Ukrainian and Russian sections of the Committee for a Workers' International (the Militant Tendency's International) to scam political organisations in the West out of funds — and maybe also for their own personal amusement. (Hoodwinking supposedly arrogant Westerners who thought to throw their political nets eastwards to gather up groups under the umbrella of various Internationals.)

Posing as a small group sympathetic to our politics they put out feelers via email and it eventually led to a couple of SPGBers (Danny Lambert and Vincent Otter) visiting the Ukraine, with a return trip being organised in which a 'Semyon Shevchenko' visited Britain, addressing the SPGB's Annual Conference, and formally establishing the  IYW as the World Socialist Party of the Ukraine, a section of the World Socialist Movement. 

In the summer of 2003 we got wind of this being an elaborate scam perpetrated against ourselves and about 10 other political groups, and we took steps to expose the fraud. It turned out that 'Semyon Shevchenko' was in fact a political operator by the name of Oleg Vernyk and he was one of the main leaders of this group and its schemes. It was an embarrassment all round — including for the Committee for the Workers' International — who promptly expelled their Ukrainian and Russian sections. Vernyk's still around, still politicking, and if you search his name on the internet, you'll will find a greyer and older version of the man I met in the early 2000s.

This is just a brief and truncated version of events. There are copious documents online where all the groups scammed have their say, and where the revelation of the scam is played out in real time. (Just type in 'Ukrainian scam + SPGB' into your search engine of choice and fill your boots.) 

I can laugh at it now looking back but it was punch to the guts at the time. We dealt with the Ukrainian group in good faith — as I'm sure did the other groups scammed — and that good faith was taken advantage of.  It happens in life, political or otherwise. (Barltrop mentions similar type attempted political scams in The Monument.) 

I heard on the grapevine that Alexander Payne has bought the film rights to the story, and as long as Paul Giamatti isn't cast to play me — he's too tall — I'm fine with that. (Disregard this last line. Total bullshit.)

Party News from the January 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

We publish below the English translation (by them from Ukrainian) of two leaflets distributed recently in Kiev, the first to coincide with the anti-IMF demonstrations in Prague in September and the second in November on the 83rd anniversary of the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia.

Your living conditions are extremely hard and become worse and worse. Average month wage of Kiev worker is $US30 and student scholarship is $US4. At the same time minimal level for live is $US120. Even in accordance with official data unemployment level amounts now about 40 percent amongst people with ages up to 30 years. The level of infant mortality increased in 3.4 times only during last 6 years. This list of disasters may be endlessly continued. From the other hand, bourgeoisie has extremely rich houses, cars, goods etc on the expense of your exploitation for receiving more surplus value. Undoubtedly, IMF/WTO is terrible fruit of capitalism. But we are opposite such methods of struggle. Why? Where is alternative? Why different strikes, pickets and other actions are always unsuccessful? Bourgeois class doesn’t give us even small concessions without a fight. It’s impossible to solve separate problems without solving the main problem. Capitalists are interested in receiving the most possible used value of your labour power, so they’ve never help us, on the contrary, exploitation under capitalism will only increase. It’s economical law of capitalism. So, the capitalism is cause of all our problems, not his separate institutions like IMF/WTO. Only system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of society as a whole—the SOCIALISM, not reform of capitalism, which is impossible, is the solution of all our problems. So, our common task is consistent and resolute struggle for establish the socialism. If you want to know more about socialism—contact us. International Young Workers.

Workers!

Different kinds of “leftists” say to you that Russian “Revolution” in 1917 was socialist and proletarian, that it opened the road to real Socialism or even Communism. But is it true? Let’s see. Bolshevik minority declared that the policy of Marx and Engels is out of date. Lenin and Trotsky are worshipped as the pathfinders of a shorter and easier road to Communism. By this way they refused from democracy, socialist education of working masses, support of socialist-thinking workers, both Russian and all-world etc. These denunciations by the Bolshevik leaders are quite understandable if we realise that only the minority in Russia are Communists. In February 1917 party included only 40,000 members on the society of 180 million members. In this way Bolshevik’s rule was the rule of overwhelming minority, which with the help of violence and authoritarian dictatorship conducted their power over the people.

We state that because of a large anti-Socialist peasantry and vast untrained population, Russia was a long way from Socialism. Lenin admitted this by saying: “Reality says that State Capitalism would be a step forward for us; if we were able to bring about State Capitalism in a short time it would be a victory for us”. But if we are to copy Bolshevist policy in other countries we should have to demand State Capitalism, which is not a step to Socialism in advanced capitalist countries. All of us know how much disasters State Capitalism in USSR brought to workers. Therefore Leninist, Stalinist, Trotskyist etc. slogans like “back to USSR”, “Long live the proletarian revolution 1917”, “Lenin is always alive” etc. are not the socialist and have nothing common with tasks of socialist movement of Ukraine and the entire world.

So, we consider that the 83rd anniversary of Russian “Revolution” in 1917 is the serious cause to think about the experience, that workers class received during these years. Only system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of society as a whole—the SOCIALISM is the solution of all our problems. Capitalism does not operate in the interest of the majority, and can never be reformed so that it does. Until we finally abolish wage labor, we workers will never be free. So, our common task is consistent and resolute struggle for establish the socialism.

If you want to know more about socialism–contact us.

International Young Workers