Right, I'll have a go at sticking some thoughts down about this, thanks
ska invita for taking the time to write the above. A couple of things first though; I think some of the tension around this topic comes from misunderstandings and misreadings of what others write on here, for a bunch of reasons - our own histories and backgrounds, the fact it is a really emotional topic, and also that obviously the written word is sometimes just easy to misinterpret. So, if I do that with anything you wrote I apologise in advance. I also am just working this stuff out, reading and thinking on what people have posted here has shifted what I think, and even though it might come across that I have a very clear line that's not quite the case.
OK. I'm really surprised you think the "What would you do?" is not a valid question. People asking that question about any area of politics to us and people like us deserve a pretty fucking good answer, that surely is a huge and fundamental chunk of politics (of which this war is a part of); explaining what the problems are and why they're there and navigating ways out of them? It doesn't mean I'm suggesting you imagine you're PM or a General or part of the ruling class for a day, but rather what other options do you have now, either as theoretical ones, or as practical ideas. Because plenty of left wing/working class projects and people
are doing stuff to support the fight against the Russian State invasion and occupation.
If you take the war out of the question and put in anything else (climate change, fascism, housing crisis, work based struggles, etc.) would you also say that the only question is 'how we understand this'? How we understand this is of course fundamental in guiding what we would then do or want, but would you also have said that's all we can do about '30s Spain, '40s France, or more recently in all the messy struggles in Syria, etc.?
To me that also smacks a bit of giving up on any semblance of international solidarity as well. Not to mention out own agency about what we can do, either individually or collectively. Would you be happy speaking to a bunch of Ukrainian lefties who were fighting and organising and saying all we can do is try to understand it?
You say it's been a long time in the making, but so's everything that's shit! Going on about chances to have avoided it might be interesting and might illuminate long terms ways of it re-occuring, but it's pretty much fuck all use to people in Ukraine
now which is largely what we're talking about. We can and do plot the development of capitalism and patriarchy and it's very interesting and useful, but of little pragamatic value here and now in more immediate struggles.
To also just wash your hands of this topic with a blanket excuse of not being able to have the full picture and so we can't make any judgements is just nonsense and not something we say with any other issue either is it? TBH it's hard not see that your ideology comes before anything here, and you're coming to a position and then justifying it retrospectively. I mean it's also lazy and predictable (but also true) that you being able to have that position from living in the UK (assuming you do, or not in Ukraine at least...) is a position of detached privilege.
I largely agree we don't know how this will end, but that shouldn't stop us doing things in the present with the idea that (like most of life) we have ideal goals in mind, but we muddle through towards them, but often end up with something we didn't imagine at the start, but ideally a better option that what we would have had if we'd done nothing.
Just to add; I don't think it's contradictory to be against the war, to support Ukrainian workers in their struggles against the Ukrainian State imposing working restrictions on them, to support the Russian anti-war resistance, to support the Ukrainian armed forces fighting Russia, to be in favour of NATO supplied weapons to the Ukrainian forces, and to think that it's a total tragedy that thousands of (mostly poor) Russian soldiers are being killed, yet be on some level be also somewhat happy that they are.
Will try and add a bit more later.
