Alexander Downer – Donald Trump aide George Papadopoulos – Russian Influence?

Alexander Downer, former Australian Foreign Minister in Conservative LNP coalition, Australia’s UK High Commissioner till 2018, visitor to Koch Network Heritage Foundation linked Hungarian Danube Institute (with former PM, now GWPF, UK Trade Advisor and Murdochs’ new Fox Board member Tony Abbott), and source for claims by Trump related people of DNC emails stolen by Russians i.e. George Papadopoulos.

‘Just a diplomat doing his job? A new book puts the spotlight back on Australia, Russia and interference in the US election.’

PUBLISHED DAILY BY THE LOWY INSTITUTE

‘Downer, Turnbull, Trump and a poke in the Five Eyes

DANIEL FLITTON

Published 1 Sep 2022  

“What he did would have got any other ambassador sacked. It was reckless and self-indulgent and put the Australian government in a very awkward position.”

Strong comments from Malcolm Turnbull. Even more remarkable considering that the former prime minister was reflecting on the performance of Alexander Downer, a fellow Liberal, Australia’s longest-serving foreign minister, a former UN special envoy and Australia’s one-time High Commissioner in London – the job where Turnbull’s barbs are aimed. “Foolish behaviour … blundering … blurting out political gossip … worst possible way to do it.”

Downer’s notorious 2016 drinks with Donald Trump aide George Papadopoulos have again hit the headlines, the wine bar chat said to have triggered an FBI investigation into Russian interference into the US presidential election that year. Or the “Rigged Witch Hunt”, as Trump would have it.

The latest adventure into this prickly history comes via extracts from a newly released book, The Secret History of the Five Eyes, by journalist and filmmaker Richard Kerbaj. And the book – canvassing the controversies and intelligence ties between Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand – has quickly caused a stir.

Former UK Prime Minister Theresa May reportedly confessed doubts about continuing a “special relationship” with Washington after unfounded allegations of British eavesdropping on Trump. China, meanwhile, is complaining about details in the book of American pressure on Britain to force Huawei out of the country’s 5G network. Canadian spies are accused of knowing that an informant helped smuggle British teenager Shamima Begum into Syria to join Islamic State, a claim that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has now pledged to examine. (Begum is in a long-running legal stoush in a bid to return home after being stripped of citizenship.)

But back to Downer and concern that what Papadopoulos allegedly said at the drinks “should only have been passed on to the Americans via the most discreet intelligence community channels”, as Turnbull put it to Kerbaj.

To refresh the timeline: Downer met Papadopoulos at Kensington Wine Rooms in London in May 2016, hearing, he says, Papadopoulos claim Russia had a dirt file on Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

“It sounded bad, but my attitude at the time was who would know whether this was even true,” Downer is quoted by Kerbaj.

Afterwards, Downer sent a cable back to Canberra reporting the conversation. Some six weeks went by until July when Trump was officially endorsed as the Republican candidate. Downer then decided to bring the Papadopoulos claims directly to the attention of the US chargé d’affaires in London, Elizabeth Dibble.

“He had no authority from Canberra to do this,” Turnbull wrote in his 2020 memoir, “and the first we heard of it in Australia was when the FBI turned up in London and wanted to interview Downer.”

Cue what is by now a long-standing debate.

Some have described Downer’s actions as “those of a diplomat doing what he was paid to do: gather information in Australia’s national interest”. Joe Hockey, who had to contend with the fallout in Washington as Australia’s ambassador at the time and warning it could have put intelligence sharing at risk, has also defended the actions of his former colleague.

Other questions have been raised about the urgency with which the information from Downer’s initial cable was passed on to the Americans (or whether it was passed on at all). Trump pressed Scott Morrison to examine Australia’s role. Papadopoulos, who spent a fortnight in prison for lying to investigators and was later pardoned by Trump, casts the whole episode in vastly conspiratorial terms.

Downer, while admitting he would have voted for Trump, has been dismissive:

‘I’ve had to put up with four years of Trump and some of his fringe cronies claiming I was part of a conspiracy with Hillary Clinton, the FBI, CIA, MI6, Italian intelligence, ASIS, Ukrainian spies and who knows who else, to bring him down. Twitter is full of demands from the hysterical right that I be sent to Guantánamo Bay.’

So, rewind. In 2016 – before the Trump presidency, Brexit, “fake news”, the “deep state” and the passing parade of Putinistas that has turned modern politics into a circus – it might not have been obvious what was about to be unleashed. But in Turnbull’s view, Downer’s action brought into question “the discipline and professionalism of our foreign service”, which was enough for him to be sacked. Why wasn’t he?

“Alexander was a good friend of mine and the foreign minister, Julie Bishop. He is our longest-serving foreign minister, a former leader of the Liberal Party. And at the time we learned of his foolish behaviour we had every interest in keeping it confidential.”

But this raises another enduring and yet unanswered question about this whole messy episode. Why wasn’t Downer’s involvement kept confidential, given the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network is built on trust and secrecy?’

For related articles and links on Australian Politics, EU European Union, Immigration, Koch Network, Political Strategy, Russia and Tanton Network click through:

‘Why Australia’s conservatives are finding friends in Hungary’

‘Doing the right thing’: Ex Trump adviser praises PM as Alexander Downer cops it again’

Russia Report – Anglo Conservatives Compromised by Russian Interference on EU and Brexit

Return to questions over the U.K. Russia Report, former PM Johnson, Brexit, Conservative government, Russian oligarchs and influence on elections including the EU referendum..

Written by Peter Jukes and originally published January 2023 by ByLine Times, asking questions that are not only unresolved, but actively avoided by the Tories, media and supporters for the advantage of Putin’s Russia and oligarchs, both east and west?

Brexit, Conservatives, Nativism, Libertarian Strategy, Single Market and the European Union

US or Anglo led nativism operates in a parallel universe with the, often fossil fueled, libertarian socio economic ideology promoted by The Republican or GOP, UK Conservatives or Tories and Australian LNP Liberal National Conservative Parties, along with many others in media and/or have influence e.g. climate science denial and blaming ‘immigrants’ for environmental ‘hygiene’ issues.

Monbiot – Radical Right Libertarians – Fossil Fuel Think Tanks – Koch & Tanton Networks

Good overview via Argentina by George Monbiot in The Guardian ‘What links Rishi Sunak, Javier Milei and Donald Trump? The shadowy network behind their policies’ and concerning dynamics around national politics, media, think tanks and governance.

The ‘junk tanks’ he talks of, observed in Anglosphere and globally are Atlas – Koch Network and another that shares donors in the US, Tanton Network. The former does low tax, low regulation and small government while the latter is faux environmental via demographics, population and migration ‘research’.

Assange – Useful Idiot or Willing Dupe of the US Right and Putin’s Russia?

Recently there have been calls and pressure on the Biden Democratic administration, by supporters of Assange in Australia and the U.K., for him not to be deported and possibly pardoned (for charges brought by Trump administration), while many others contest his ‘journalism’ credentials, or at least how unhelpful his cause has been for journalism.

Putin’s Supporters in Europe and Anglosphere: Willing Dupes and Useful Idiots?

Article from the ECFR European Council on Foreign Relations in 2016 describing those aligned or allied with Putin’s Russia on both the European left and right, while the latter are adopted or supported by Putin’s Russia, with recommendations on what Europe could do, warning of Russia’s covert support for populist parties; post Brexit, pre Trump and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

‘Putin’s friends in Europe’

The upsurge of populism in Europe has provided Russia with an ample supply of sympathetic political parties across the continent.

Trump January 6 Insurrection, Conspiracy and Project 25 for Autocracy

Thom Hartmann in Alternet has written a prescient article, ‘What if Trump’s conspiracy was way bigger than we know?’ that both infers from the noise around Trump and also asks, is there something deeper occurring around the GOP, US and transnational politics?

Interesting overview and thesis, withstanding Hartmann has not included related machinations in the Anglosphere, especially U.K., Australia, Russia, Central Eastern Europe and Hungary whether Brexit or Russian influence.

Linked to the latter has been Tufton St. London, US #KochNetwork influence on Brexit, due to antipathy towards EU regulation on environment, fossil fuels, financial transparency and taxes, not to forget open society, liberal democracy and empowered citizens; shared by the Kremlin and right wing Murdoch media.

Then, as disturbing, but maybe not unrelated, is another push from Koch’s Heritage Foundation for GOP permanence in Project 2025 – Koch Heritage Foundation Plan – Trump GOP – Permanent Republican Government.

‘Opinion | What if Trump’s conspiracy was way bigger than we know?

Thom Hartmann 11 Sep ‘23

There was, it increasingly appears, a conspiracy involving some in the most senior levels of the Trump administration to end American representative democracy and replace it with a strongman oligarchy along the lines of Putin’s Russia or Orbán’s Hungary.

This would be followed, after the January 20th swearing-in of Trump for a second term, by a complete realignment of US foreign policy away from NATO and the EU and toward oligarchic, autocratic nations like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Hungary.

So, what did Trump do, and why did he do it? And who helped him and why?

There’s little dispute that on January 6th, 2021, an armed mob incited by Donald Trump and led by members of several white supremacist militias tried to murder the Vice President and Speaker of the House to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s 7-million-vote victory in the November 2020 Election.

Evidence is growing, however, that the leadership of this conspiracy to end our form of government and replace it with a Putin-style strongman oligarchy wasn’t limited to Trump, Stone, Giuliani, and a few dozen militia members.

If Trump was truly planning not just to hang onto the presidency but to concurrently seize every lever of power in Washington — the way coups conducted from “inside of government” (like Putin and Orbán did) typically happen — he’d need some help, particularly from the military and the senior levels of federal law enforcement. So let’s start there.

Over at the Department of Defense then-acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller and his Chief of Staff Kash Patel (formerly of Devin Nunes’ staff) were running the place.

They controlled the Pentagon and our armed forces but, more importantly, they controlled the National Guard, whose troops had previously surrounded buildings in the Capitol area three-deep during the peaceful BLM protests in the summer of 2020.

Commander-in-Chief Trump (on whose behalf he acted), then issued a memo (attached at the end of this article) on January 4th specifically directing McCarthy and the National Guard that they were:

• Not authorized to be issued weapons, ammunition, bayonets, batons, or ballistic protection equipment such as helmets and body armor.
• Not to interact physically with protestors, except when necessary in self-defense or defense of others.
• Not to employ any riot control agents.
• Not to share equipment with law enforcement agencies.
• Not authorized to use Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) assets or to conduct ISR or Incident, Awareness, and Assessment activities in assistance to Capitol Police.
• Not allowed to employ helicopters or any other air assets.
• Not to conduct searches, seizures, arrests, or other similar direct law enforcement activity.
• Not authorized to seek support from any non-DC National Guard units.

Then-Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations General Charles Flynn, the brother of convicted/pardoned foreign agent General Michael Flynn (who had been pushing Trump to declare martial law and seize voting machines nationwide) was on the call; both the Pentagon and the Army, it has been reported, lied to the press, Congress, and, apparently, to the Biden administration about his presence on that call for almost a year.

It wasn’t until December that it was widely reported that the National Security Council’s Colonel Earl Matthews (who was also on the call) wrote a memo calling both Charles Flynn and Lt. Gen Walter Piatt, the Director of Army Staff, “absolute and unmitigated liars” for their testimony to Congress in which they both denied they’d argued to withhold the National Guard on January 6th.

If they were involved in a plan to help Trump take over and run the government — as usually happens when coups involve senior levels of the military — it’s going to take a lot of digging to find out, since this coverup of their activities and conversations on January 6th was apparently in place for almost a full year before it was discovered.

This was at the same time that Trump was maintaining possession of documents for which foreign governments would be willing to spend billions. In fact, Russia, Saudi Arabia, China and others have spent billions of dollars on acquiring secrets and documents of that sort, via their annual intelligence Budgets.

Trump would also have needed the support of several foreign governments if he was planning to end American democracy and re-align our nation with oligarchies run along the lines he and Putin were possibly envisioning. Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia would logically be at the top of that list because of their military, oil, and financial power, followed by Turkey, Hungary, and Egypt because of their strategic locations.

A couple of events from last year might highlight the echoes of those plans to end American democracy and re-align our government with Russia/China/Saudi Arabia. If Trump was coordinating with foreign governments, suddenly a lot of seemingly disparate and inchoate events make sense.

Trump and Kushner already had a history of illegally sharing Top Secret “human intelligence” information with Saudi dictator Mohammed Bin Salman dating back to when MBS staged his own coup/takeover of the Saudi Government.

As The Jerusalem Post reported on March 23, 2018: “Kushner, who is the son-in-law of President Donald Trump, and the crown prince had a late October meeting in Riyadh.

“A week later, Mohammed began what he called an ‘anti-corruption crackdown.’ The Saudi government arrested and jailed dozens of members of the Saudi royal family in a Riyadh hotel – among them Saudi figures named in a daily classified brief read by the president and his closest advisers that Kushner read avidly….

“According to the report, Mohammed told confidants that he and Kushner discussed Saudis identified in the classified brief as disloyal to Mohammed.” The day before, CBS and The Intercept quoted MBS as gloating that Kushner was “in his pocket.”

The Washington Post noted that:

“Recently ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser H.R. McMaster expressed early concern that Kushner was freelancing “… [National Security Advisor] McMaster was concerned there were no official records kept of what was said on the calls.

“Tillerson was even more aggrieved, they said, once remarking to staff: ‘Who is secretary of state here?’”

Meanwhile, throughout his presidency, Donald Trump was having secret phone conversations with Russia’s President Putin (over 20 have been identified, including one just days before the 2020 election). 

The Moscow Project from the American Progress Action Fund documents more than 270 known contacts between Russia-linked operatives and members of the Trump Campaign and transition team, as well as at least 38 known meetings just leading up to the 2016 election.

The manager of his 2016 campaign, Paul Manafort, who previously worked on behalf of Vladimir Putin, has recently admitted that he was regularly feeding inside campaign information to Russian intelligence. There is no known parallel to this behavior by any president in American history.

There are, after all,credible assertions that when Trump was elected, members of Russian intelligence and Putin’s inner circle were literally partying in Moscow, explicitly celebrating a victory they truly believed they helped make happen.

In his first months in office, Trump outed an Israeli spy to the Russian Ambassador, resulting in MOSAD having to “burn” (relocate, change identity of) that spy. That, in turn, prompted the CIA to worry that a longtime US spy buried deep in the Kremlin was similarly vulnerable to Trump handing him over to Putin.

On July 31, Trump had another private conversation with Putin. The White House told Congress and the press that they discussed “wildfires” and “trade between the nations.” No droids in this car…

The following week, on August 2nd, The Daily Beast’s Betsy Swan reported that Trump had just asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a list of all its employees (including all our “spies”) who had worked there more than 90 days, and the request had intelligence officials experiencing “disquiet.”

Within a year, The New York Times ran a story with the headline:

“Captured, Killed or Compromised: C.I.A. Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants.” The CIA then alerted spies around the world that their identities had probably been compromised, apparently by Donald Trump himself.

As early as 2018, for example, Senator Rand Paul made a solo trip to Moscow to personally hand-deliver a private note from Trump to Putin. Its contents are still unknown.

Senator Paul has also consistently taken Trump’s side with regard to the 2020 election and, when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago this month, responded with a call for the repeal of the Espionage Act. 

About six months after the Saudis gave Kushner that second batch of billions, we learned that for several months “dozens” of American spies and agents had been “captured or killed” around the world. AsThe Washington Post reported on October 5, 2021:

“Top American counterintelligence officials warned every C.I.A. station and base around the world last week about troubling numbers of informants recruited from other countries to spy for the United States being captured or killed, people familiar with the matter said.”

Is it possible that all these different data points are part of one whole?

That Trump had a plan, worked out with Putin, MBS, a few dozen high administration officials, and a large handful of Republicans in the House and Senate, to overthrow our government and establish an oligarchic system like what is currently in place in Russia and that Fox “News”showcased in Hungary?

That once that overthrow was completed under the gimmick of six Republican-controlled states “discovering voter fraud” and changing their Electoral College votes, the plan was that Trump and his GOP allies (including the 11 Republican senators who, this May,voted against aid to Ukraine) would quickly move to re-align America away from NATO/EU and toward Russia/Saudi Arabia?

• And that the deaths of our spies, the Saudi-driven explosion in oil prices when Biden came into office, Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine, and even Xi’s cranking up his aggression against Taiwan were all just the echoes of Trump’s failed plan?

• Was there a high-level conspiracy in the Trump administration, done in concert with one or more foreign countries, to end democracy in America?

• Did they intend to seize control of our government on January 6 and never let Go?

• Was their next plan to realign us with autocratic nations like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Hungary?

Given how effectively it appears much of the evidence including emails, phone calls, and text messages (that could exonerate as well as convict) has been destroyed, much of that destruction apparently done by Trump himself while in office (toilets, papers being burned, etc.) and, more recently, by Trump appointees still in our government, we may never know.

For other related blog and articles on EU European Union, Media, Koch Network, Political Strategy, Populist Politics and Russia click through:

Russia and Anglosphere – Conservatives and Oligarchs – War vs EU and Future

Conservative Christian CNP – Council for National Policy in US – Influence in UK, Russia and Europe

Russia Report – Anglo Conservatives Compromised by Russian Interference on EU and Brexit

Assange – Useful Idiot or Willing Dupe of the US Right and Putin’s Russia?

Russian Brexit Coup by Putin and Compromised British Conservatives

Strange Conservative Political Links – The Anglosphere, Hungary and Russia

Fake Anti-Imperialists of the Anglo Left and Right on Ukraine and Russia

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 2014 we have observed many Anglo left and centrists echoing Kremlin talking points that justify the invasion, shared with the far right, but not by the European left nor right?

However, if one observes many of the US along with some British, Australian etc. geopolitical analysts, media types and politicians promoted in Anglo right wing media, not only do they present sketchy analysis, but seem linked to US oligarchs, Putin allies and/or far right, or at best cold war agitprop?

Some posit that many on the left are not just playing out ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, but the Red-Green-Brown Alliance, according to Wiki sources:

‘The term red–green–brown alliance, originating in France in the 2000s, refers to the alliance of leftists (red), Islamists (green), and the far right (brown). The term has also been used to describe alleged alliances of industrial union-focused leftists (red), ecologically-minded agrarians (green), and the far right (brown)’

Further, on social media and at an individual level, many also seem to support the anti-Vaxx movement and Koch ‘Freedom Rallies’, suggesting it’s not organic? In addition to the article below, Byline Time’s Duncan Campbell has a related article here on supposed left media bias towards ‘Russia Who Watches the Watchdog? The CJR’s Russia Problem’

Many of the high profile Anglo influencers include Mearsheimer linked to Charles Koch Foundation and Sachs with Rockefeller Foundation who both met with Hungarian PM ‘mini Putin’ Orban, journalist Vanden Heuval (The Nation), Mate & Blumenthal at Grayzone, Greenwald formerly The Intercept now appears on FoxNews, of the latter Tucker Carlson and many GOP Republican Reps, including the Freedom Caucus, promote Putin and Russia over Ukraine.  In the UK we have John Pilger, Jeremy Corbyn, George Galloway and Nigel Farage in a similar universe, being linked to support for Russia in the recent past, but now unclear, although the latter is still on (K)GB News? 

Following is an analysis of this dynamic in an article from Paul Mason in a joint ByLine Times and Kiev Post published through ByLine Times Supplement; well worth subscribing to:

‘Six Ways Ukraine is Winning: How the European Left Marginalised a Transatlantic Red-Brown Coalition

Author and journalist Paul Mason looks at how the European left has rallied around the Ukrainian people while la hardcore of ‘neo-Bolsheviks’ are aligning with the hard right

On the day Russia invaded Ukraine, the left swung into action: it condemned the aggression, began agitating for arms to Kyiv, and dispatched activists to the borders, working 24×7 to support the flood of refugees. But that was the Polish left, not their British and American counterparts. 

The far left of the Anglosphere, by contrast, disgraced themselves. In the UK an alliance of self-styled “anti-imperialists” and Putin fans around Stop The War had been making the Kremlin’s case for months: Ukraine’s borders were illegitimate; rising tension was the fault of “NATO aggression”. Even the US warning that Putin was about to invade was written off as CIA propaganda.

Once the war began, an influential part of the European left made it their priority to stop the flow of Western arms to Ukraine. On 23 April a “Peace Conference” in Madrid, fronted by Jeremy Corbyn, saw MPs from Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Greece and Ireland call for practical action to disarm Ukraine. In Greece, the Communist Party delivered it – blockading a railway line being used to ferry ammunition towards Ukraine. In Berlin a prominent MP from the Left Party actually fronted a rally demanding “Security for Russia”.

For anyone who’s been associated with the radical left, as I have, it’s been a sickening experience.

‘Political Maturity’ in the European Left

Over the past year, however, the internationalist left has rallied substantial forces in support of Ukraine’s resistance. In France, thanks to their work, every trade union federation has signed a pledge of solidarity with Ukraine. Finland’s Left Alternative party, which is part of the coalition government, helped swing their country’s decision to join NATO.

Here, the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign – founded by, among others, Labour’s John McDonnell – has organised practical help for the Ukrainian left group Sotsialny Rukh (Social Movement), some of whose members are fighting at the front, and provided vehicles and other equipment to combat units staffed by miners from Ukraine’s free trade unions.

Poland’s Razem party, which has six MPs in the Sejm, took a lead both in countering pro-Moscow “left” propaganda and organising solidarity to the Ukrainian left and trade unions. But one of the first things Razem had to do, their spokeswoman Zofia Malisz told me, was to break with the so-called Progressive International, founded by former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. 

Varoufakis’ group proved incapable of issuing anything other than an abstract condemnation of war in general. 

“We asked them to stand on two principles: that Ukraine is a sovereign nation and that Russia is an imperialist country,” said Ms Malisz. “They couldn’t give us a straight answer, so we had to part ways with them.” 

By 8 March, Razem had helped create the European Network of Solidarity with Ukraine (ENSU) which coordinates the work of left groups, parties, trade unions and journalists. It has national committees in Belgium, France and Catalonia, and also runs a “Brigade of Editorial Solidarity”, involving newspapers, book publishers and writers, which promotes the translation of left news sources from Ukraine and the Russian democratic opposition.

Claudiu Craicun, who heads Demos, a left political party in Romania, believes the failure of figures like Varoufakis and Jeremy Corbyn to support Ukraine has forced the European left into a moment of political maturity. In East Europe, he says, where you are up against oligarchy and authoritarianism, you are always forced to prioritise fighting for democracy, not simply social justice:

“It would be hard for me now to work with leftists who didn’t support Ukraine, or who indirectly supported Russia. If you can’t see a fascist country; a decaying empire; and its threats to our democracies – then we cannot be fellow travellers. This is a watershed moment. I don’t care about left unity – if we don’t share the same values, it’s better to split”.

Szymon Martys, another Polish activist organising with ENSU, is scathing about those on the left who’ve labelled Ukraine’s resistance a “proxy war”:

“We are talking about a real colonisation now. Not just in Crimea. Contacts on the ground are saying Russia is now settling people in [occupied] Melitopol. If you want to compare it to Israel-Palestine there’s no better parallel: it’s a real, daily colonisation – not just a typical war.”

‘Neo-Bolshevism’

Many left-wing activists still struggle to comprehend where pro-Putin leftism comes from. Adam Novak, a veteran left-wing journalist based in Bratislava, who helps coordinate ENSU, believes much of the attraction of “tankism” is cultural.

“There is the folklore of a few surviving Stalinists,” he says, “but they’re not significant. At a second level, however, you see Stalinism coming back among a younger generation, who like the images of strength, discipline and dealing ruthlessly with your enemies. People who’ll share statements by Kim Il Sung on Twitter for example.”

Zofia Malisz calls the phenomenon “neo-Bolshevism”: “It radiates from skilled and well-funded communication centres in the Anglo-Saxon world: using provocative narratives on social media, nice graphics – whitewashing Stalin, for example. Disinformation plays on people’s best instincts – like wanting peace, or it plays on guilt, as in Germany, or a saviour complex.”

The democratic left… needs to acknowledge that it has more in common with liberalism, humanism and Christianity than it has with Stalinism.

For me, the source of left sympathy for Putin is clear. Leninism was founded on the idea that working-class people are incapable of achieving socialism themselves, and that the “historical process” has therefore to be aided by an outside force.

For Lenin, by the early 1920s, that force was the peasantry of the global south. For the “tankies” of the Cold War it was the Soviet Union. For the New Left of the 1960s, it was students and ethnic minorities. But when the USSR collapsed, and the liberation movements went mainstream, all that was left were the supposedly “progressive” dictatorships of Syria and Venezuela. 

Then, in 2012, came Xi Jin Ping. The logic of his “Sinicised Marxism” is clear: everything that disrupts the US-dominated global order is good; all “colour revolutions” – ie democratic revolts against totalitarian rule from Syria to Ukraine to Iran – are to be crushed. Xi and Putin even spelled these principles out in their joint communique of 4 February 2022.

So if you look at the assemblage of left organisations pushing Putin’s narratives on Ukraine, we are no longer dealing simply with Leninist nostalgia: there is a new vigour, a magnetic force and, of course, the dirty money and social media manipulation skills coming both from Beijing and Moscow.

Looking at the trajectory of the pro-Putin left in the USA, there is little doubt about where this ends: in a fusion of far-left and far-right ideologies that we saw in the Rage Against The War Machine rally in Washington DC on 19 February 2023. Far-right Republicans and Oath Keeper militia figures took the stage alongside the Green Party’s Jill Stein, and the self-styled left comedian Jimmy Dore. The red-brown politics of the 1930s, incredibly, are back.

The future of the democratic left has to be no less clear: the historian EP Thompson once wrote that there are “two Marxisms” and they are incompatible. The democratic left, he said, needs to acknowledge that it has more in common with liberalism, humanism and Christianity than it has with Stalinism.

That’s what the Ukraine war is teaching a whole new generation of anti-capitalists. You cannot achieve social progress alongside a bunch of apologists for Russian fascism, no matter how good their positions on abortion or trans rights are, or how exciting their memes look.’

For related links on Ageing Democracy, Critical Thinking, EU European Union, Koch Network, Media, Political Strategy, Populist Politics & Russia:

Russian Brexit Coup by Putin and Compromised British Conservatives

Geopolitics – Horseshoe Theory – Russian Invasion of Ukraine – Anglosphere European Far Right and Left

Brexit, Conservatives, Nativism, Libertarian Strategy, Single Market and the European Union

Russian Dark Money – Influencing British Politics, the Conservative Party, the GOP and European Right

The Anglosphere Faux or Fake Left and Centre Heading to the Populist Right?

Koch Industries – Putin – Russia – Ukraine – Koch Network – Think Tanks

Ageing Democracy, Nativism and Populism

Varn Vlog: Eric Draitser on the complications of Russia, Ukraine, and the contemporary left

Eric Draitser: Challenging the Fake Antiwar Left on Ukraine