There was one worrying aspect of the otherwise excellent fringe on Ukraine on Tuesday afternoon.
It was really concerning to hear Yuri Levchenko introduced by the chair as a representative of “Ukraine’s Labour Party”, and his organisation Narodovladdia (People’s Power) presented as ‘Ukraine’s left’.
The Labour Party already has a (loose) relationship with an organisation in Ukraine called СД Платформа – SD-Platform. You’ll even see the Labour Party logo on some of their publications, like their ‘Progressive Vision’ document – see https://sdplatform.org.ua/ourcontent/en .
They have gathered together some impressive young people in particular around aims of “modern education, decent work and a fair distribution of wealth”.
More to the left of SD-Platform, there is also the Ukrainian Social Movement (Соціальний рух) https://rev.org.ua/.
There are trades unions and CLPs around the country who have made direct links in support of the work of those organisations – both the SD-Platform and the Social Movement have spoken to Labour Party and Young Labour branches on Zoom, along with meeting their local Ukrainian community organisations working to support refugees. CLPs should be doing that.
To call Narodovladdia “Ukraine’s Labour Party” is something of a stab in the back of the SD-Platform and the Social Movement who have supported Labour Party and trades unions meetings learning about Ukraine during Russia’s war.
Neither of those are registered political parties, true, though both have interest in moving towards such a thing when parliamentary election are held again. Levchenko’s organisation is registered, but he is leader of Narodovladdia in the same way Farage is leader of reform: he owns it.
Levchenko’s political activity goes back to the far right Svoboda party 2008-2019. When Svoboda effectively collapsed in 2019, Levchenko and Svoboda associates launched Narodovladdia – buying an off-the shelf registered party originally formed in 2014 as Sirius, changing its name first to ‘Levchenko’s Team People’s Power’, later shortened to People’s Power. He presents very differently nowadays to when he was a leading member of Svoboda.
At the fringe meeting Levchenko spoke as you would hope a Ukrainian leftist would speak. But that is not his history. Perhaps he has changed. But Narodovladdia is not a democratic organisation, and is not “Ukraine’s Labour Party”.
It is really important for Labour activists to make links with the Ukrainian left. We would urge comrades to contact the SD Platform and the Social Movement, and to encourage trades unions to make direct links with their equivalent unions in Ukraine (easily found by looking at the affiliates of the various trades union internationals). There are some great examples of trades union branches twinning, which has helped with getting practical aid sent to Ukraine, as well as with people in the UK listening to Ukrainian voices and understanding better.
We would urge too making contact with local Ukrainian communities in the UK, hearing from them and the refugees they support. But we absolutely would not urge falling for Levchenko’s efforts to push aside those comrades – in the pursuit of getting the ‘franchise’ from the UK labour movement as an intermediary between us and the real Ukrainian labour movement. Direct links are a million times better.
