On February 15, the State Duma, lower house of the Parliament of the Russian Federation, approved the immediate diplomatic recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. A majority in the Security Council of the Russian Federation supported said recognition on Monday, February 21. And on the same day, Vladimir Putin gave a speech laying the groundwork for what hours later, on the night of Monday the 21st to Tuesday the 22nd, can now be described as the two-phase invasion of Ukraine. First, the sending of Russian troops to the territories of the aforementioned republics and, second, on Thursday the 24th, with the offensive on the entire territory of Ukraine.
Putin’s speech last Monday, the aforementioned February 21, is key. In it, the Russian president emulates Stalin in the 30s of the last century, on the one hand, and de facto vindicates the House of Romanov, the dynasty that ruled Russia from the 17th century until the Russian revolution of October 25, 1917, according to the Julian calendar (November 7 according to the Gregorian). Why? Because it explains, probably more clearly than ever before, the principles, so to speak, of his action.
Says Putin: “Modern Ukraine was created entirely by Russia, or to be more exact, by Bolshevik communist Russia.” Lenin and his followers did it crudely, alienating the historical territories of Russia. Millions of people who live there were not asked anything. The new tsar described the paradox, in his eyes, of the situation. He came to say that despite what Lenin had done, the ukrainians have paid very poorly that so-called alienation of the historical territories of Russia.
“Grateful descendants have demolished monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. This is what they call decommunization. Do you want decommunization? Well, this suits us quite a bit. But you must not stay halfway. We are ready to show you what genuine decommunization means for Ukraine.” That is to say: the invasion.
Lenin’s proposal
The elements of a national identity of the Ukrainians were not, as Putin says, the brainchild of the leader of the Russian revolution. Precisely because of its existence for centuries, and that of other nationalities, Lenin advocated the recognition of the right of national self-determination, including, if those peoples so decided, the right of separation.
In 1919, three years before the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), in December 1922, Lenin explained in a letter his proposal on the Ukraine, which should be given attention apart from the expropriation of capitalism. “The power of the soviets (workers’ councils) has its own special tasks in the Ukraine. And one of them requires great attention right now [tras la reciente derrota en Ucrania del ejército contrarrevolucionario blanco liderado por el general Antón Denikin]. And it is the national question, or, in other words, is Ukraine going to be an independent Soviet Socialist Republic linked to an alliance (federation) with the Russian Federal Soviet Socialist Republic, or is Ukraine going to merge with Russia to form a single Soviet republic? . Ukraine’s independence has been recognized both by the Executive Committee of the Soviet Socialist Russian Federation and by the Russian Communist Party. It will be the Ukrainian workers and peasants who will decide whether to merge with Russia or remain as a separate and independent republic and in this case what federal relations they will have with Russia & rdquor ;.
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In 1922, Ukraine joined the creation of the USSR. In the 1930s, Stalin put into practice “Russification & rdquor; of Ukraine, which resulted in the elimination of the Ukrainian language and the repression of the culture of the Ukrainian people, victims, in turn, of a famine, derived from forced industrialization, which caused the death of millions of people, outcome characterized by some historians as a genocide.
The ongoing invasion pushed by Putin is a new Russification of Ukraine.