CURRENTLY the Ukrainian parliament is under siege by fascist bands led by the Svoboda and Right Sector movements demanding that MPs pass a law recognising the Bandera group that fought alongside Hitler’s forces in World War 2.
Meanwhile, the east of the country is under the control of the self-defence forces who have fought the Ukrainian army to a standstill, and have refused to accept the regime installed by the February 22 coup. There, currently a ceasefire holds, as the crumbling Kiev regime is unable to prosecute the war, and is seeking a breathing space to rearm itself.
The west of the country however is now in complete uproar. The fascists are holding mass demonstrations in Kiev and throwing MPs who they disagree with into rubbish dumps.
There are also however daily demonstrations of workers, youth, mothers and wives, demanding that the soldiers are brought home, condemning the war in the east, and the coupist regime and its pro-US policies.
Massive tensions are mounting in West Ukraine ahead of elections scheduled for 26 October, after the just-passed Lustration (purification) law came into effect on Wednesday.
Ukrainian Premier Arseniy Yatseniuk said that about one million persons would come within the purview of this law. He said that the whole chain of command would fall under this law.
The law also prohibits ‘Yanukovych-era officials from working in public administration for ten years and others for five years.’
Among the people on the list are the president, the prime minister, the first deputy prime minister, deputy prime ministers, ministers, the heads of the central executive administration body that is not part of the Cabinet of Ministers, the heads of the National Bank, the Anti-Monopoly Committee, the State Property Fund, the State Committee on Television and Radio Broadcasting, and their first deputies.
The ban will also apply to the head of the General Staff: the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the commander of the Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the commander of the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the commander of the Navy of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and their first deputies.
Ukraine’s incumbent President Pyotr Poroshenko, who used to be a minister in the government of former Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov, will remain unaffected by the law, Ukrainian parliament Speaker Alexander Turchinov said on Thursday.
According to Turchinov, the Lustration law will cover bureaucrats of all levels, including public servants. However, it does not spread to elective posts.
The law declares certain categories of people who will never be able to pass the Lustration. They include high-ranking officials who held posts in a period from February 25, 2010 to February 22, 2014 under the rule of President Viktor Yanukovich; law enforcers, public servants and local self-government officials who caused damage to the life, health and property of ‘Euromaidan’ protesters as well as persons who had occupied the leading positions at the CPSU, the Youth Communist League before August 19, 1991; political instructors in the Soviet armed forces and the USSR Interior Ministry; the former security agents and persons ‘linked to political persecution of members of the Ukrainian national liberation movement during World War II and in the postwar period.’
What is on hand is the persecution and murder of political opponents of the US-EU imperialist sponsored coup.
Russian workers will demand that the Red Army immediately intervene to overthrow the coupist regime. The Ukrainian section of the Fourth International is fighting in both the East and the West of the Ukraine to mobilise the working class and the youth for a political revolution to restore Soviet Ukraine in its entirety, and drive the imperialist agents out of the country.
