What is the nature of the war we see in Ukraine?

Abstract

The war against Ukraine, launched by Putin on 24 February 2022, has split more than just the political Left in Germany. Since that date, every conceivable viewpoint relating to this war of aggression has been widely debated in society; a debate where everybody claims to know better than any other the truth about this war. This struggle for the primacy of interpretation is often conducted with great bitterness and a refusal to compromise. One may condemn this, regret it, even pass judgment, but it makes little difference to the current situation, nor does it get to the underlying causes of the situation where the Left is so divided on the ground. Yet how can one explain the total absence of so much as a remotely common stance across the Left concerning Putin’s war of aggression? How can it be that answers to the question of the “anatomy of the war” (Krausz 2022) differ so markedly? In this contribution I shall not be able to offer a suitable answer to this complex question. Such an answer requires a broad historical reassessment of the role of left-wing thinking and actions in our modern, globalized and capitalistic world. Instead, I would like to try to highlight connections between my own political awakening in the GDR, the process of my politicization when I first confronted this type of society, my own experiences in the struggle with the leadership of the East and West, and my current position regarding the war in Ukraine. I am not rejecting a historical-critical analysis of these events here, but this approach does reveal my own standpoint and prevents it disappearing behind an apparently scientific objectivity. My hope is that these fiercely debated arguments can thus be acknowledged in new ways – or for the first time ever – and that my contribution will provoke greater awareness of the origins and background of each individual standpoint.