There's A Schism On The Left Over Ukraine

Whittaker Chambers made the point in Witness, almost in passing, that up to the 1920s, German was the language of international socialism. But once the Bolsheviks consolidated power in Russia, that position passed almost immediately to Russian. Chambers's sympathies strike me as having remained with a more German brand of socialism throughout his career as a spy, which may explain his eventual defection. But I think this also reflects a basic conflict on the Left, which might be characterized as the idealists vs the Tankies. According to this site,

A Tankie is an apologist for the violence and crimes against humanity perpetrated by twentieth-century Marxist-Leninist regimes, particularly the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin (1924 - 1953). More broadly, the term may refer to any leftist who is perceived to support or defend authoritarian regimes on the basis that they are enemies of the United States. This can include regimes that are not and do not claim to be communist such as those of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Bashir al-Assad in Syria.

The definition goes on to suggest that Ukraine has always had a special status among leftists over this distinction:

Tankies will often argue for persuasive definitions about genocide regarding the Ukrainian Famine, arguing that Stalin didn't intend for all of those people to starve to death and realizing he is still responsible for not feeding his people. In addition, Timothy Synder's Bloodlands argues that policies were instituted specifically targeting Ukraine to exacerbate the famine which may or may not have arisen from natural causes.

I think the single best US commentator on the Russo-Ukraine War continues to be Markos Moulitsas at the Daily Kos. I linked here last May to his first discussion of Tankies. Yesterday, he brought up Tankies again, remarkably in the context of the New York Times, although he doesn't mention the controversy over Times reporter Walter Duranty's coverup of the 1932 Ukraine famine, which has been renewed as a result of the current war. Nevertheless, Kos argues,

How is it, on the very same day Russia launched 70 ballistic missiles at Ukrainian civilian targets, that launching two guided drones at Russian military targets is considered, by The New York Times, an “escalation”?

. . . Unfortunately, The New York Times is taking its cues from the Biden Administration, which refuses to deliver long-range ATACMS rockets that could, theoretically, strike inside Russian territory. But there’s a difference: the Biden Administration doesn’t want an escalation between Russia and the United States, or anything that would trigger a wider conflagration. They don’t care if Ukraine uses its own weapons to strike Russian territory. We can argue whether that caution makes sense — I don’t think it does, and in any case, the U.S. could always require veto power over Ukrainian ATACMS targets — but it’s totally different than this ignorant take, that any attack on Russian soil is escalatory.

One expects this kind of nonsense from the Tankies, busy these days justifying the authoritarian regimes in Russia, Iran, and China. But The New York Times should do better.

I think Kos is maybe being less precise here than he could be. The odd thing about the current US political alignment is that the far right is as deeply suspicious of Ukraine as some elements of the Left and equally willing to look the other way over the Putin state's authoritarianism. Meanwhile, there seems to be an alignment in policy between neoconservatives, as represented by the Institute for the Study of War, and the US State and Defense Departments in the Biden administration.

In Kos's view, which I think is perceptive, the administration is happy enough with fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian, but it's going to err on the side of caution over anything that might cause "escalation". However this might be in conflict with leftist principles -- I see a similarity in anti-Tankie viewpoint between Kos and Whittaker Chambers here -- I think the policy of avoiding escalation is unrealistic. The US, merely in supporting Ukraine, is depleting its own stocks of ammunition and precision weapons, and insofar as squeamishness over escalation prolongs the war -- which it must be doing -- it's defeating its own purpose by making the war unnecessarily expensive.

There also seems to be a stubbornness in the current diplomatic and military establishment to incorporate what we've been learning about the corrupt and ineffective Russian military in our ongoing strategy. The Ukraine war itself has rendered Russia incapable of waging any wider war, depleting its manpower and equipment by as much as half. But there doesn't seem to have been, at least so far, any visible recalibration of risk vs benefit in our overall Russia policy. This isn't how a Reagan would handle these things.

So we're looking at an odd alliance of an anti-Tankie, anti-Stalinist, Whittaker Chambers style left with what ought to be a more assertive neoconservative center, which is in turn aligned against a Trumpist right that's inclined to keep appeasing even the collapsing Putin state, which is itself strangely allied with the Tankie left.

Like the alliance, or attempted alliance, of the leftist gentry class with the Lumpenpoletariat, I don't see how this can succeed over any medium to long term.