March 26: Nazis or Fascists?
This map is of Mariupol from Konstantin Pegov, inside Mariupol, according to Andrei Martynev, whose recent article (as all his articles) I encourage you to read.
The red areas are under the control of the RF, the DPR and Chechens. The blue areas are being “cleansed” by the Chechens, house to house.
Yellow are the remaining Azov in fortified industrial positions, harder to dislodge.
As you see, the Azovs are basically imprisoned. There is no escape. And the Chechens have not being taking prisoners.
This supports my thesis that Mariupol belongs to the DPR now — that it really fell days ago — and that the main challenge, which Martynev sees as the creation of civil order, is humanitarian.
Martynev thinks that the RF has been slow to set up civilian governments . To me, that is not the main issue at this point — which is food and medicine for the population and protection from roving gangs of Azov thugs. People’s homes and livelihoods have been destroyed. They need the basic necessities of life before they can consider what kind of governments they want.
From the start, Putin made clear that in the Ukraine, civil administration is a Ukrainian matter — they must create their own solutions. He does not believe that it is for Russia to impose solutions but rather create the conditions for local Ukrainians to do so freely. Only then can they have functioning democratic polities that meet their needs. Bottom up. Not top-down. Used to be called “democracy”.
That means “denazification”.
I used quotation marks because the Azovs and their ilk are not “Nazi’s” in Hitler’s sense of National “socialism”. Pepe Escobar calls them “Zio-nazis” — given the stellar presence of Zelensky and his oligarch backer Kolomoysky.
When Putin denounced a “bunch of neo-Nazis” in power in Kiev, the Comedian replied that it was impossible because he was Jewish. Nonsense. Zelensky and his patron Kolomoysky, for all practical purposes, are Zio-Nazis.
The contradiction here inherent in the idea of “zio-nazi”, points the way to resolving the issue of who these people really are, something that seems to perplex many writers such as the excellent Ramin Mazaheri
Simply put, the “neo” part of “Neo Nazi” is a giveaway: the Banderites and Azovs are not Nazis at all — rather they follow the tradition of prewar Polish fascism, quite a different thing and the reason why Hitler suppressed the Bandera movement until they proved useful in fighting the Russians. Polish fascists are also antisemitic but rather more ambivalent than the Germans.
Fascism is not primarily about “race” — it is inherently “classist” as Mussolini says “affirming “the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind”.
Got that? Inequality.
That’s why oligarchs like Kolomoysky fund the NeoNazis. And now very, very rich comedians like Zelensky. That’s also why the American Empire, which is run by rich oligarchs have a natural affinity for fascist regimes and a repugnance for any regime where the State prioritizes the interests of the people.
Hitler said of Nazism that without race, National Socialism was just a variant of Marxism — so his aim was actually a society where the rich and powerful served the State — as embodied in himself, of course. He got his support from the German working class, not the upper class, who loathed him, no doubt for his bad table manners and lack of social hygiene.
Americans assumed that because Hitler hated the Russians, he was a “fascist” like Mussolini. He wasn’t. Stillm it won him huge financial support from the US and UK in the prewar years. Hey, he liked dogs, didn’t he?
Putin, however, is both anti-nazi and anti-fascist.
Let us remember that he is also Jewish (through his mother, Maria Ivanovna Shelomova “Shalom” in Hebrew) ! At least according to the passport application below.
Putin has had to put up with the Russian fascism that emerged when the USSR collapsed and those with power rushed to exploit social chaos. Yeltsin did not create but supported the rise of a Russian oligarchy which took control of the country.
In the beginning Putin got rid of half of the oligarchs, but he couldn’t get rid of all without bringing down the economy which had already been severely damaged. Keep in mind, he is working class and his sympathies are with the people.
Only now, with American sanctions, is he really able to bring the remaining oligarchs to heel. The sanctions are hitting the Rich. O where O where is my million dollar yacht, by private jet? Why are bank accounts frozen?
When I began writing this series I predicted four stages, each ideally a week to ten days — but with war being what it is — possibly longer — which meant that it would be mostly over in April sometime. The military phase of the “operation” continues but the war is won.
However, final victory for the Russians cannot occur until the current government leaves. It is already planning to relocate from Kiev. “Relocate”. Actually, “flee”.
Where can it go? It can run but it cannot hide.
Ukraine is like a trashed house. Get out the garbage bags and dustpans and brooms and mops. That is what the military operation is now — just cleaning.
My guess is that referendums and elections will come in May. May 9 is victory day in the Great Patriotic War for the Russians. This must be their goal at this point. So they have time to put things in order with a minimum of casualties and destruction of infrastructure.
