Social Items

TPQ
Michael Phillips ✍ I bumped into my traitor one day in Belfast. 

It was unexpected, to say the least. I wouldn’t be overly confident the feeling was mutual, though. The only significant indicator that he wasn’t acting alone was his sudden appearance and equally strange exit. The surprise encounter naturally blindsided me. 1–0 to him.

His initial reaction to our encounter did, however, tell me he knows that I know. Apologies for being overly enigmatic at this point, so just bear with me. Despite knowing it was bound to happen sooner or later, I was left feeling unusually vulnerable and chastised myself for it later. I’ve simulated the experience many times in my head and therefore run through the whole gamut of emotions one would expect from a friend who had planned to put a bullet in your head.

And not just me. I’m not that special. He could have made it 2–0 earlier had it not been for their ineptitude.

The point being, I decided on the spot that it wouldn’t serve any purpose raging about it, cursing him or making a scene. Besides, he possesses powers of invincibility and would make a suitable character in Marvel’s anti-hero series The Boys. As well as being adept at deception, his range of superpowers includes resisting public humiliation, shrugging off defamation, surviving demotion and possessing no discernible moral compass. Basically, nothing sticks.

The rest of our short conversation revealed little of any tangible substance about our impromptu meeting, if there actually was one. He is quite skilled and manipulative, but his armour can be pierced. Every anti-hero has an Achille’s heel, naturally, and his kryptonite is talking.

It may seem counter-intuitive for a traitor, but he is a seasoned, competent speaker. On the other hand, he tends to shift from subject to subject in the same breath, in what is known as ‘cognitive load management’. He also frequently steers the conversation towards safer ground with familiar topics. It’s a technique referred to as ‘strategic redirection’ and helps bring the listener in closer.

Those near and dear to him might appreciate these peculiar traits as dynamic, a bit nuts, random, quirky. In reality, it’s being evasive and deceptive for those who understand the game.

As we said our goodbyes, he invited me for a coffee. Funnily enough, I was expecting this, since I’d been informed, he had employed this tactic before.

And that is exactly what I did next.

I felt a touch of apprehension, as I had no idea what I was walking into. Acts of betrayal have that effect on friends. I was quite intrigued by his behaviour at this point. I certainly wasn’t poking around for ‘evidence’ of his guilt, nor was I trying to provoke him into letting his mask slip. That’s Amateur Hour.

There’s a bigger picture, which I’ll return to later.

He’s in the driving seat here, and I was the lone passenger along for the ride, wondering where the hell we were going.

My visit to his office on this occasion was a surprise to him. We’re 1–1 now. He couldn’t mask it, but he was afforded a few minutes to compose himself while I waited for him to join me. His manner was more relaxed, but we still went through a similar dance routine to the first time around: shifting subjects, walks down memory lane. I got a personal tour of his office.

Unfortunately, the coffee bar was closed.

On a personal note, a couple of things grabbed my attention.

When he mentioned another person in a certain context, he used the term ‘one of us’, and I thought it was a fascinating reference. I was relishing the idea of quipping that he was, in fact, a very unique individual, but I let him carry on. I saw it as a ruse to retreat to his safe space.

Another incongruous matter was the way he dealt with a person in our presence. He plied them with exaggerated compliments, and it suddenly reminded me why so many people blindly appreciate the respect and adulation he confers upon them.

It’s so much harder to suspect a nice guy of treachery.

I wasn’t searching for the truth because I’m absolutely convinced that even if forced to observe the physical torture of a family member, my traitor wouldn’t blink twice. I’ve come to terms with what he is and can take an educated guess at his raison d’être.

Ultimately, he carries around a gargantuan, egocentric sense of himself that you will not see externally, since his survival utterly depends upon it.

In My Traitor, the novel, the protagonist Antoine is shocked by the revelations that his friend and mentor, Meehan, is a tout, but eventually learns to accept the contradiction. It really appears he captured the essence of those entangled in close proximity to traitors.

Whilst the book is based on reality, I found a glitch in Antoine’s psychology that undermines his supposed loss and profound disappointment in humanity. He was an outsider, got manipulated by a conman and, when confronted with the hard facts, continued to believe Meehan was a redeemable character.

Doubtless, Antoine demonstrates motivated reasoning, clinging to Meehan because of the significant fear that accepting the truth may reflect on his own deeper character flaws. It was a devastating mistake in any case, and one many of us could make if left to face similar circumstances.

My curiosity, rather, has evolved from those Republicans who are behaving like Antoine by accepting the contradiction of this agent and his co-sponsors. The difference, though, is that many of them know or suspect reality is being twisted around them, yet they continue to provide moral and physical support for these agents.

To add further insult, my traitor picked up the equivalent of Charlie’s Golden Ticket and could have tiptoed off to start a new life elsewhere. Instead, the leadership wholeheartedly welcomed him back into their arms, which are apparently as wide as the Mississippi.

No wonder he feels like ‘one of us’ and confidently struts around the Republican communities he once wrought murder and mayhem upon.

Much has been discussed, argued and speculated over informers continuing to clock into work in the North, but one question begs a proper answer, and it’s nothing to do with their dark arts.

They’re just doing what their British masters trained them for.

After 30 years of peace, leading Republicans demonstrate an irrational willingness to shed these critical tools of betrayal, regardless of the mountain of material currently stacking up against them.

Why?

The Dark was right.

And finally, if you’re reading this, you still owe me a coffee.

 

⏩Michael Phillips is a former republican prisoner.  Keep up with his work.

Coffee With My Traitor

Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum ☭ Andy Burnham, the Border Poll and the Road Brendan Hughes Warned Us About.


Andy Burnham's comments that a border poll is "off the cards" should not be dismissed as careless words. They expose a fundamental truth: the British state determines the terms of any constitutional change in Ireland. Socialist republicans and the anti-imperialist movement in Ireland never had illusions about this reality.

The message is unmistakable. London is letting Sinn Féin know who sets the agenda. If Sinn Féin were genuinely caught off guard, it would demonstrate a remarkable lack of political awareness. But they were not shocked. They know 'Project Stormont' has failed badly, regarding the national question; even if it has financially served its participants well.

Under the Good Friday Pacification Agreement, the British Secretary of State holds the power to call a border poll—but only when the outcome is certain, and only when it serves capitalist-imperialist interests. The English ruling class retains this card, employing the age-old tactic of ruling by fooling. James Connolly rightly pointed this out over a century ago, and still, there are great Irish fools to practice on.

The constitutional arrangements are not based upon revolutionary acts of Irish self-determination outside the imperialist system. They are based upon an agreement between governments, designed to accommodate their interests. This gerrymandered process is not a simple all-Ireland question decided in a single vote. It envisages constitutional votes North and South, with outcomes requiring both governments to give effect to expressed wishes. Even if a majority in the North votes for change, the British state does not suddenly disappear from the process.

This brings us to Brendan 'The Dark' Hughes. His warnings are more relevant than ever. Hughes understood where constitutional nationalism would lead when devoid of revolutionary theory. He saw the danger long before others acknowledged it.

Hughes looked at the post-Good Friday Pacification Compromise and asked what had happened to the republican objective. He saw Stormont and recognised the British state was still there—the same structures, the same civil service, the same institutions, the same occupation. He asked whether the republican struggle had really been reduced to republicans taking ministerial positions inside that system. His warning was clear: the Stormont regime remained intact. The British still controlled it. Sinn Féin ministers sitting inside it did not magically transform it to meet republican ideals.

Hughes famously questioned whether thirty years of struggle had ultimately come down to "a big room at Stormont, ministerial cars, dark suits" and administering the British system. This was not a criticism from someone advocating a return to war. Hughes specifically rejected that argument, recognising the enormous human cost. His argument was political. What happened to the All-Ireland struggle? What happened to the objective of a 32 County Socialist Republic? What happened to the idea that working-class people of Ireland should control their own political and economic destiny?

Those questions remain vital. Look at where the Sinn Féin project has arrived. Instead of challenging the fundamental structures of capitalism and imperialism, Sinn Féin has become an important part of managing those structures. They sign off on cuts to public services. They operate within Stormont and the Dáil as servants to the status quo. They operate within the imperialist European Union and advocate for its survival.

The great political objective has become constitutional change through a process involving London, Dublin, Washington, and Brussels. But what kind of Ireland would that produce? The "United Ireland" being discussed by the establishment is not the 32-county Socialist Republic that Brendan Hughes fought for. It is an agreed Ireland between imperialist powers—an Ireland acceptable to London, Washington, the European Union, and native capitalism. An Ireland in which existing economic power structures remain intact.

A change in constitutional arrangement does not necessarily mean a change in the class system. The wealthy would remain wealthy. The powerful would remain powerful. Working-class people would still face unaffordable housing, a two-tier health system, poor wages, insecure employment, and deteriorating living standards. Those who create the wealth would still not control it. The British-imposed border might change, but the economic system would remain.

This is where Hughes's warnings become particularly important. He spoke about politics becoming tired, repetitive, and detached from revolutionary ideals. He warned that republicanism itself could become absorbed into a process creating a class of professional politicians. He said: "The republican leadership has always exploited our loyalty." Republican activists gave decades to a struggle based upon very different principles—national liberation and social transformation, an Ireland controlled by its people rather than elites. The revolutionary objective has been replaced by constitutional politics. The struggle was not about elections, ministerial offices, and budgets.

Now we are told to celebrate the possibility of a British government eventually allowing a border poll. That is quite a journey from the original objective.

If a British Prime Minister can say a border poll is "off the table," regardless of subsequent clarifications, it reveals the nature of the Good Friday Agreement. The British state remains central to determining the circumstances of constitutional change. That is precisely what Hughes warned about.

He wasn't saying republicans should return to armed struggle. He was asking a more fundamental question: Why are so-called republicans administering British rule instead of challenging the system that maintains it?

More than eight hundred years of English and British involvement in Ireland. Three hundred years of capitalism has demonstrated that the political system does not serve those who create society's wealth. If the British ruling class eventually decides that an all-Ireland arrangement serves its economic, strategic, or political interests, the British state will adapt accordingly. It has done so before. Unionist protests would not prevent it, nor would republican rhetoric.

The question is not simply whether there will eventually be a United Ireland. The question is: whose United Ireland? A United Ireland designed and negotiated by governments, political parties, big business, and international interests? Or an Ireland fundamentally transformed in the interests of the people who live and work here? The former can be achieved while leaving capitalism, inequality, and elite power untouched. The latter requires a much deeper political and social transformation.

That was the Ireland Brendan Hughes was talking about. He could see the danger of republicans becoming administrators rather than revolutionaries. He could see the danger of confusing political participation with political power.

Today, when a British Prime Minister can effectively tell Sinn Féin that the border poll is not on the agenda, perhaps people should remember exactly what the Dark was warning us about. The Dark was right. The road of constitutional nationalism always leads towards administering the existing system rather than replacing it.

If the final destination is an agreed United Ireland that leaves capitalism, imperialism, and elite power intact, then changing the constitutional border will not deliver the Ireland that generations of working-class republicans fought for. The real question is: "Who will own it, who will control it, and who will benefit from it?"

If the answer remains the same powerful and wealthy minority, the working class will have gained nothing. That is why Burnham's words matter—not because he said a border poll is off the cards, but because they expose the limits of the constitutional road. A road Brendan Hughes warned us about years ago. The Dark was right.

Time to bring politics back into our working-class communities, for only then can we meaningfully begin to build for the Workers' Republic and, in doing so, prepare the ground to demand a democratic 32-county referendum for national liberation.

The Dark Was Right

Dr John Coulter ✍ Boasting is an attribute that is always frowned upon if you are a Presbyterian minister’s son.



But there is one personal boast I will never stop shouting about - I had the best dad any son could ask for.

Since 2018, this past weekend has always been very emotionally difficult for me. Eight years ago, one of my biggest heroes in life - namely my father, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE - died.

I miss him so very much, especially his solid fatherly advice and spiritual support. I was sitting beside him when he slipped into eternity at 9.15 pm that September in Coleraine’s Causeway Hospital surrounded by family members.

A few days earlier, I had celebrated my birthday. Last week, I turned 67 and I thought back to what dad was doing when he celebrated his 67th birthday.

It was 1996. He had just completed a three-year term as Mayor of Ballymena before being elected as a UUP member for North Antrim to the Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue. Party leader David Trimble appointed him as UUP Chief Whip for the Forum delegation.

The Forum photo with this tribute column to mark the eighth anniversary of dad’s passing has dad, seated left, then Ken Maginnis, the former Fermanagh and South Tyrone MP, and then David Trimble, later Lord Trimble.

I was dad’s press officer and speech writer, and also served as his note taker in confidential meetings. The Forum was the forerunner to the current Stormont Assembly.

As a son, I was so proud when it was announced he was to be UUP Chief Whip. It had been such a long journey since those dark days when he was minister of Clough Presbyterian Church in Co Antrim in the late Seventies and a liberal clique within the congregation left him with no other option but to resign.

It’s all very well for folk to say - ‘those events in Clough Presbyterian Church happened nearly half a century ago, so move on Coulter and get over it.’ But there is still the guilt on my part that my decision to do a wee blue award in the Boys’ Brigade, called the President’s Badge, escalated into such a row that dad had to quit as minister.

In spite of the overwhelming friendliness of the people in the church, I always suspected there was a liberal clique in that Clough congregation who could not tolerate my dad’s evangelical preaching of the Gospel and decided he had to go.

In 2026, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) as a denomination is going through a very challenging phase in its history over the safeguarding crisis. Old wounds will be reopened.

This year, I have clocked up 48 years as a journalist. Since I became a born again Christian in January 1972, I had always thought God was calling me to follow in dad’s footsteps and become a Presbyterian minister.

But in December 1977, when we returned from a family wedding to find foul-mouthed graffiti on the Presbyterian Manse front gate, I binned my application to what is now Union Theological College in Belfast.

We had already endured hate mail and early morning phone calls to disrupt our sleep, but the graffiti was the final straw. Mum’s mental health began deteriorating rapidly after that and by March 1978 dad had no other option, but to resign and find a job in lecturing in the then Ballymena Technical College.

Dad lost his job as minister of Clough Presbyterian Church doing his first love - preaching the Gospel; we lost our home in the Manse and had to rent a small damp farmhouse; mum lost her health. All these sacrifices were because I wanted to do the BB President’s Badge.

Dad could easily have said - go to another BB company and do it there. I eventually joined another BB company, but not in time to save dad’s ministry in Clough Presbyterian Church in 1978.

From time to time over the years, dad and I would have speculated. If I had decided to move to another BB company in 1976 shortly after I got my O Level results and do my President’s Badge there, would he have been able to remain as minister in Clough Presbyterian Church?

Dad was firmly off the opinion that such was the determination of that liberal clique in the congregation to get rid of him in the late Seventies, that they would have found another excuse.

Again, I hear some folk saying - ‘let it go Coulter; you’ve got your wee President’s Badge and your parents are dead. There’s no use digging up the past!’ They may well have a point as many of the liberals in that north Antrim congregation who left us with no other alternative but to leave are now dead, too.

But I got a kicking in that Clough church hall one Sunday morning before Bible class as a teenager. Yes, it was just one kick to my lower back on the left hand side. But whether by accident or design, it was a perfectly placed kick. Twice a day, I still at 67 have to take my medication to cope with the effects of that kick.

I can’t forget the physical and verbal abuse I suffered simply for being a Presbyterian minister’s son. Journalism has been my escape from the ministry. Mentally, journalism also helped me suppress the memories of how I was treated in that congregation during that President’s Badge saga.

When I joined the BBC in 1981 after graduation, the Troubles were still raging. Reporting on the conflict became an occupational springboard to move to either the mainland or abroad. Quite a few of my colleagues from those early Eighties did. My personal plan was simple; gain that necessary experience in the Belfast newsroom, then move to the mainland and as far away from Clough Presbyterian Church as possible.

But in late 1982 came a challenge. Dad told us following private conversations he had had with UUP leader Jim Molyneaux and South Belfast UUP MP and Orange Order chief Rev Martin Smyth that he had decided to go into politics himself.

Obviously, he would need a press officer and speech writer - transferable skills I had acquired as a journalist. This was an opportunity to give something back to dad for all the sacrifices he had made for me in Clough Presbyterian Church.

Just as I had binned the dream of becoming a Presbyterian minister at Christmas 1977, so too at Christmas 1982, I decided to bin any desire to move to the mainland.

My first press release for dad in 1982 was confirming he was seeking the UUP nomination for North Antrim at the expected Westminster General Election in 1983. And as the saying goes, the rest is history. I wrote his press statements and speeches until dad retired from public life in 2011.

For the record, the evangelicals eventually gained control of Clough Presbyterian Church and in later years, my parents were invited to rejoin the congregation which they did.

Dad’s journey in life was briefly retold at his funeral service in Clough in September 2018 - although the so-called President’s Badge saga was diplomatically omitted.

With the safeguarding crisis gripping PCI, the time has come to tell my story. After all, I am a journalist and that’s what we do in the media; words are our weapons.

I will forever remember my dad as the father who had the courage to sacrifice his much-loved career as a minister for his son.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Dr Coulter has been a journalist since 1978 and is currently a political commentator with GB News.

Remembering The Reverend Bob 🪶A Tremendous Father

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Eighty Five

 

A Morning Thought @ 3257

Packy Carty ✒ Let me set the context to my previous article, because I think the census focus alone is actually a distraction from the stronger material case.

Partition wasn't just a demographic exercise in 1921. It was underwritten by material fact: the North was the industrial heartland of the island — Harland & Wolff, the linen mills, the rope works, tied directly into the markets of an empire that at that point spanned a quarter of the globe, priced in a sterling that was the world's reserve currency. The Belfast capitalist class (at a time when they were in the upper echelons of the Tory Party) backed partition and resisted Home Rule for decades specifically because they feared being locked out of that imperial market and yoked instead to a largely agrarian, protectionist southern economy with nothing comparable to offer. That fear was rational (from their position), given the material conditions of the time. It is not rational now, because every part of it has inverted.

The empire is gone. Sterling hasn't been the reserve currency in the relevant sense since Bretton Woods, and Britain's own relative economic position has been in decline for decades — forty years of deindustrialisation and financialisation, the 2008 crash hitting an economy already hollowed out by it, and austerity afterward that produced fifteen years of zero real wage growth rather than recovery. Meanwhile the "empire" worth being inside now isn't British, it's the EU single market — and the South is fully in it while the North is tied to a shrinking economy outside it despite dual access.

Look at what that's actually produced, not as abstraction but as numbers. Life expectancy in the South now runs about two years longer for men and 1.5 for women than in the North — and that gap has been widening, having actually favoured the North until as recently as 2005. Household disposable income is running roughly €3,500 higher per year in the South. GNI per capita in the South hit €63,500 in 2023 against €34,500 in the North — almost double. Population growth in the South ran at 14.8% over the last decade against 3.9% in the North, which tells you plainly where people see their future. And on health specifically — the system the North was once meant to be proud of relative to the South — 86 per 1,000 people in the North are now waiting over eighteen months for treatment, against 12 per 1,000 in the Free State. The South isn't a paradise, Dublin's housing crisis is real and serious, but on the metrics that actually determine a working family's material life — income, health access, life expectancy, whether the economy around you is growing or stagnant — the historic hierarchy has completely reversed since partition was drawn.

That's the materialist case for why this doesn't need to hinge on whether Catholics or Protestants tick which census box. Someone with no inherited stake in either flag, deciding purely on where their wages, their healthcare and their children's prospects are better served, is increasingly looking at an inverted set of facts from the ones that justified partition in the first place. That's not identity politics. That's the same kind of cold material calculation the Belfast bourgeoisie made in reverse a hundred years ago, now pointing the other way.

And it's worth naming plainly where that leaves political unionism, because there's a version of this that isn't defeat for them either. Once a nationalist-plurality Stormont and set of councils genuinely dominates the same way the old unionist majority once did, unionism could find itself facing the same "permanent minority under someone else's rule" position nationalists spent fifty years under — and at that point, breaking out into an all-Ireland state where unionist TDs hold real coalition leverage, in natural alliance with the Southern establishment right — Fine Gael, and parts of Fianna Fáil — starts to look materially rational too, not just for nationalists but for them.

⏩ Packy Carty is an East Tyrone Socialist Republican. 

The Empire Is Gone

People And Nature ☭ Written by Simon Pirani..

24-August-2026


 A Ukrainian court this month found Bohdan Syrotiuk, a Trotskyist, guilty of high treason and jailed him for 15 years – solely for words he wrote about the war.

This assault on free speech should be challenged, otherwise the decision could turn out to be the thin end of the wedge.

The court, in Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv region, south eastern Ukraine, convicted 27-year-old Syrotiuk on the basis of texts published on the World Socialist Web Site.

Bohdan Syrotiuk. Photo: Intent / social media

The judgement asserted, without foundation, that the texts supported the Russian war effort and subverted Ukrainian statehood.

The court’s conclusions are overwhelmingly political, stating that Syrotiuk’s articles:

delegitimised the political leadership of Ukraine and denied the democratic processes at work in Ukraine” and, with reference to the Bandera movement, “devalued national heroes, historical national figures of Ukraine, turning them into criminals.

While this judgement is especially severe, it is part of a broader repressive trend against which human rights advocates and others are speaking out.[1]

To clarify the dangerous nature of the judgement, I have summarised it below. Here are three points, by way of introduction.

First. The context for this judgement, and other human rights abuses, is a defensive war that Ukraine has been forced to wage by an imperialist aggressor, Russia – a war in which the deaths and injuries are counted in hundreds of thousands, and the destruction wrought overwhelmingly on Ukraine’s civilian population is incalculable.

The scale of the attacks in Ukraine on human rights, including the freedom of speech, can in no way be compared, quantitately or qualitatively, with the orgy of repression by the Russian state that has accompanied its offensive war. The Russian regime kills or jails all who make the slightest protest against the war. Russia’s tinpot dictatorships in the occupied areas of Ukraine, not far from Mykolaiv, are especially savage.[2]

In the bigger scheme of things, Syrotiuk could be seen as a victim of this war. But the war does not excuse, justify or minimise the blow against free speech struck by his conviction.

Second, calling for this conviction to be overturned does not mean endorsing Syrotiuk’s politics, his distorted view of the war’s causes, or the campism of the Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists, of which he is a member. (See citations from his articles below.) One does not have to accept his arguments to understand that they can not be characterised as treasonable.

Punishing these views with a prison sentence deters everyone’s freedom of speech, not just Syrotiuk’s.

Third, it is Syrotiuk’s misfortune that his case has been taken up by the WSWS, a divisive sect whose activities are often damaging to the labour movement and to internationalism.

The WSWS campaign in defence of Syrotiuk – directed more at providing their supporters with a martyr to pity than at building a case for his release – may not help him.

It began with an exaggerated denunciation of Ukraine as “fascistic”, which does indeed chime with Kremlin narratives, linked with a bizarre assertion that repression is more severe in Ukraine than in Russia.

Attention can be drawn to Syrotiuk’s case, and the implicit danger to free speech, without reference to, or involvement with, these political freeloaders.

The threat carried by the judgement is not to them, but in the first place to Ukrainian socialists, including the majority of socialists who recognise Ukraine’s war as just and, in many cases, participate actively in the war effort. For example, Maksym Shumakov, an organiser of the student union Priama Diia, currently faces the threat of prosecution under Ukraine’s “decommunisation” laws. (Details here in Ukrainian.)

But the threat goes wider than that: if unchallenged, the Pervomaisk court’s decision endangers the free speech of trade unionists, students and all in Ukrainian civil society who – even in difficult wartime conditions – insist on the right to question and challenge government decisions.

That right is central to the democracy for which so many Ukrainians believe they are fighting.

What Syrotiuk has been convicted of

The conviction is under Article 111.2 of the criminal code, high treason, defined as “an act wilfully committed by a citizen of Ukraine to the detriment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability, defence capability, and state, economic or information security of Ukraine: joining the enemy under martial law or armed conflict, espionage, assistance in subversive activities against Ukraine provided to a foreign state, a foreign organisation or their representatives”.[3] Paragraph 2 states that, under martial law, the sentence is 15 years to life, rather than 12-15 years as stated in paragraph 1.

The court judgement refers as proof of guilt only to articles published on the World Socialist Web Site, and Syrotiuk’s part in writing, translating, circulating them or being quoted in them.

Towards the end of the court decision, the court summarises. It says that four of the articles cited in evidence express “non-recognition of the presence in Ukraine of a legitimate and internationally recognised political leadership, based on the majority of the citizens of Ukraine”; the articles seek to “delegitimise the political leadership of Ukraine and deny the democratic processes at work in Ukraine, particularly since 2013” and “deny the existence of the state in internationally recognised borders, including retrospectively”. The articles also “deny the unilateral status of the Russian Federation as the aggressor state with respect to Ukraine” and claim this is “linked to the assertion of the absence of the Ukrainian state’s right to independent decision-making and the subordination of Ukrainian state power to foreign powers, especially the USA”. The articles “compare Ukrainian citizens with fascists and Nazis from the time of the second world war”, and they “devalue national heroes, historical national figures of Ukraine, turning them into criminals”.

The court then refers to the expertise brought before it, and concludes that the prosecution has proved its case, with the single exception of charges brought with respect to the article “The military is grabbing draft evaders everywhere”. It adds that there are no mitigating circumstances, and sentences Syrotiuk to 15 years’ imprisonment with confiscation of property.

The court decision

The court decision is published on a state repository of documents. The text describes the prosecution case, the defence case and the judges’ conclusions. It is the sole primary source of information about the hearing that I have been able to access.

Firefighters in Pervomaisk tackling damage from Russian bombing, August 2024.
Photo: Ukrainian National News

The prosecution case consists mainly of citations from Bohdan Syrotiuk’s articles (see below). In addition to these, the prosecution presented to the court a letter from the Centre for Countering Disinformation of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine that it claimed proved that the WSWS was an “information agency of communist orientation” that “circulated pro-Russian narratives, connected to Russian military aggresion against Ukraine”. The Centre found seven articles written or circulated by Syrotiuk that included “fragments, statements, assertions and phrases that indicated approval of” Russian military action, and thereby harmed Ukraine’s state and information security.

Both prosecution and defence presented linguistic expert analysis of the articles, that reached broadly opposite conclusions. The court then asked the Odessa Institute of Jurisprudential Scientific Research to examine the articles. The experts there found not only “fragments, statements, assertions and phrases that indicated approval of” Russian military action, but also “non-recognition of the presence of an elected leadership in Ukraine”; “contempt and ridicule” of Ukraine’s political leadership; “the transformation of heroes and historical figures into criminals”; denial of Ukraine’s democratic processes and of the Ukrainian population’s control over government; “negative evaluation” of the Ukrainian armed forces; and denial of the existence of the Ukrainian state.

The judgement repeatedly, when referring to Syrotiuk, adds the adjectival phrase “acting to implement the directions of representatives of a foreign organisation, realising his subversive intention and preliminary criminal agreement with other members of the organisation he leads, the Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists”.

The defence argument in court

The court judgement states that, at the hearing, Syrotiuk “denied his guilt of the crimes for which he is incriminated. He refused to make a statement or answer questions. When speaking in debate, he emphasised that he is a Ukrainian patriot and an opponent of the ‘Putin regime’. He said that he condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and denied any intent to betray the state. He denied having caused harm to the state and information security of Ukraine, and denied that he had given assistance to a foreign organisation in undertaking subversive activities against Ukraine. He stated that he is a socialist by conviction, and that the World Socialist Web Site, on which he had published articles, is published by the International Committee of the Fourth International, and its editorial activity is conducted not in Russia but in the USA.”

The court judgement recorded that the defence lawyer said that Syrotiuk was accused of treason, by means of giving help to a foreign organisation and its representatives in undertaking subversive activity against Ukraine. Under Article 17 of the Ukrainian criminal code, the burden of proof of the existence of such a foreign organisation, and its subversive intentions, lay on the prosecution – and there was no such proof in the case file. No evidence had been produced that a relevant structure lay behind the World Socialist Web Site; no evidence, either, of intention to undertake subversive activity. The case relied entirely on analysis of publications on the internet. The requirements of the criminal code Articles 84, 85 and 86 regarding proof had not been met; neither had the Article 62 of the Constitution, that states that criminal prosecution can not be based on presumption.

The defence lawyer (as reported in the court judgement) pointed out that, in the publications used in evidence, there were no calls to subvert national security, to liquidate Ukrainian statehood, to destroy Ukrainian identity, to undertake subversive activity, to overthrow the constitutional order or seize the state’s borders, or to seize the state’s borders by military aggression. There was no propaganda advocating war or the breaching of the foundations of Ukrainian national security in the information sphere. “The overwhelming majority of the court expert’s conclusions in the criminal case are evaluations of political, historical, ideological and other public statements, which are themselves protected by Article 10 of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [commonly known as the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Ukraine is a signatory].”

The articles Syrotiuk wrote

Of the articles written by Syrotiuk under pseudonyms, or quoting him, on the WSWS web site, one that summarises his view of the war is a May Day greeting he gave to an on-line meeting in 2023. He said:

This war was unleashed by US imperialism, NATO, and the Putin regime. It is an imperialist war, waged not in the interests of the proletariat of Russia, Ukraine and America but in the interests of capital in these countries. This war is the result of capitalism, a system stricken with a deadly disease. In anticipation of its impending death and bristling with weapons of mass destruction, capitalism is digging a grave for all living things, to bury them before they bury it.
Is it true that all the people of Ukraine support this war? My answer is: No! The claim that all Ukrainians support this war is a brazen lie. The main prop for this war is not the proletariat and the Ukrainian population, whose situation is appalling. The main prop for this war are the Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists and those they serve.
We, the orthodox Trotskyists of the Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists, do not support this war, either in Ukraine or in Russia.
Yes, there are those in Ukraine who sincerely believe that American imperialism can stop this war. They believe that the weapons supplied to the regime established by the 2014 coup d’état and now represented by Zelensky can lead Ukraine to victory and end this war.
But in fact, US imperialism is fuelling this war and inciting a third world imperialist war. The fomenting of this third imperialist war involves not only America, NATO countries and the Kyiv regime represented by Zelensky but also the bourgeois Ukrainian nationalists, who serve these regimes. These forces call themselves supporters and ideological followers of the fascist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). They have unleashed terror against the people and national and political genocide on the territory of western Ukraine. They have sowed death, fear, grief and tears on Ukrainian soil. They have poured blood into peasant huts and filled wells with corpses.

Another article referred to prominently in the court decision, “The crimes of the Banderovites”, published in April 2023, stated:

The Nazi accomplices of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its paramilitary wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and their leaders were involved in many crimes, including against the Ukrainian people. Yet today, to many in Ukraine, their ominous names are not synonymous with criminals, but with the names of national heroes. Streets, stadiums and cafes are named after them, and monuments are erected in their honour throughout the country.

Syrotiuk then questioned the Ukrainian “bourgeois nationalist” assertion that the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was never a legitimate state. He referred to the civil war of the late 1940s and concluded:

Today, just as then, the crimes of those who call themselves the ideological successors and followers of Bandera are almost too numerous to count. Like then, they are a bloody pack of jackals in the service of capital, running from one capitalist to another. But in changing their paymasters, they do not change their essence. There is nothing but backwardness and animal hatred in their faces and minds. Their ideas are reactionary.
Yet these very ideas of Bandera are today promoted not only by the imperialists and the bourgeois Ukrainian nationalists who want to justify the crimes of OUN-UPA, but also by those who call themselves Ukrainian national-communists, who want to justify all these horrors, by claiming that all this was caused by the policy pursued by Stalin in Western Ukraine.

In my view, these two passages summarise the key political points expressed in other ways in Syrotiuk’s other articles; these include nothing more “pro Russian” than what is cited here.[4] Readers can check the World Socialist Web Site for themselves.

Some incidental points

🔴 The court judgement mentions that Syrotiuk was in contact with citizens of the Russian Federation, presumably members of a Trotskyist organisation there also linked to the WSWS. The judgement also mentions once, in passing, in the prosecution’s description of Syrotiuk’s contact with the WSWS, that he received a monthly payment for his work. Friends have asked whether this might indicate that Syrotiuk was, knowingly or unknowingly, being funded by Russia. My view is that:

The investigating officers were aware that Syrotiuk was paid. It beggars belief that they did not look into the source of these funds, and that the prosecutors did not attach significance to it, if they thought these payments might have come from Russia. The court has not found Syrotiuk guilty of being in the pay of any foreign organisation. It was not mentioned in the summing-up. The court was concerned solely with words spoken, written or circulated by Syrotiuk.

Whether we like it or not (I don’t), the world is full of so-called socialist organisations in rich countries who fund or partly fund activity by their fellow thinkers outside the rich world, for motives that I view as ranging from good to terrible. It beggars belief that the Russian state would be stupid enough to fund the WSWS, or that the WSWS would be stupid enough to accept that funding. In any case, Syrotiuk would have known nothing about such arrangements. Speculation about this can only take us away from the reality: Syrotiuk has been found guilty of treason solely for his words.

🔴 The officers investigating Syrotiuk’s case searched a basement in a Pervomaisk apartment block that they described as “non-residential”. They found a rucksack, a cigarette lighter, some sweatshirts, a jacket, epaulettes and shoulder patches – all bearing Russian state symbols, and a gas mask.

There was no mention of these things in the court’s summary of the proceedings. There is no indication that they belonged to Syrotiuk. They appear in the court record only in a list of items – presumably judged to be irrelevant – that the court ordered to be destroyed.

Intent magazine, in one of the few English-language articles published about the hearing, described this stuff as “military equipment”, which is stretching a point. Uninformed speculation by social media users inevitably followed. But these items played no part in the court proceedings. Again, speculation about them takes us away from the reality: Syrotiuk has been found guilty of treason solely for his words.

Note. For those who don’t know me, and want to know my view of the war, I gave it e.g. in 2014 (here and here) and 2022 (here and here).

Note, 25 August 2026. This article has been corrected to clarify that the court is in Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv region (not Mykolaiv city).

References

[1] Human rights groups in Ukraine warn of arbitrary punishment of people accused of collaboration with Russia, illegally enforced conscription, victimisation of anti-corruption campaigners and censorious application of “decommunisation” laws

[2] Reports giving overviews of political repression in Russia are published regularly by OVD-Info and Memorial: Support Political Prisoners. See also Chapter 14 of Voices Against Putin’s War

[3] The Ukrainian parliament’s web site displays the criminal code and an English translation

[4] The Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists was set up in February 2018, defining itself as fighting for “the truth about Lev Davidovich Trotsky”, against Stalinism, and “various forms of petty bourgeois nationalist and anti-Marxist politics”. Syrotiuk shifted towards Trotskyism from Stalinism. He became politically active as a teenager in 2014-15, in the youth organisation of the Communist Party of Ukraine. In May 2015 Syrotiuk, then 16 years old, in a speech at a school lesson, blamed “the USA and our home-made oligarchs” for the armed conflict that began in 2014, earning praise from the CPU – which was banned, in the same year, for supporting the armed assault on Ukraine by the Russian-backed separatists

🔴 On Tuesday 29 September, at 7.0pm, Fare Free London is holding an event on “How to Make Public Transport Free”, at the Golden Lane community centre, London EC1Y 0SA. We will hear from councillor Julie Frêche of the Montpellier metropolitan area in France, where public transport has been free since 2023, and hold our annual meeting. All welcome! See details and register here.

☭ People & Nature is now on mastodon, as well as twitter, whatsapp and telegram. Please follow! Or email peoplenature@protonmail.com, and we’ll add you to our circulation list (2-4 messages per month)

Jail Sentence For Ukrainian Trotskyist Is An Assault On Free Speech

Ukraine Solidarity Group ✊ A Digest of News from Ukrainian Sources ⚔ 1-September-2026.

In this week’s bulletin

⬤ US solidarity call.
⬤ Build the Convoy to Ukraine.
⬤ Andrei Trofimov court appearance.
⬤ Russian attempts to brainwash children.
⬤ Russia health system.
⬤ Rewriting history.
 ⬤ Russia grain producers in debt,

News from the territories occupied by Russia

Four Years Since Death of Sviatoslav Aleksapolskyi, Hero of Ukraine (Crimea Platform, August 29th)

Face of Resistance: The Story of Political Prisoner Amet Suleymanov (Crimea Platform, August 28th)

Osman Arifmemetov marks his 41 birthday behind bars (Crimea Platform, August 28th)

23-year sentences for alleged resistance to Russian invaders in occupied Donetsk oblast (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, August 28th)

Russia seeks to rewrite Ukrainian history through tanks, ‘referendums’ at gunpoint and falsified school textbooks (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, August 28th)

Brutality unlimited as Russia sentences 74-year-old to 14 years, 70-year-old to 15 years for loyalty to Ukraine (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, August 27th)

Abdulmedjit Seytumerov’s birthday: Three Years Behind Bars (Crimea Platform, August 27th)

Weekly update on the situation in occupied Crimea (Crimea Platform, August 26th)

Russian invaders call patriotism ‘treason’ in latest savage 18-year sentence in occupied Ukraine (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, August 26th)

Seized over a photo: Russia has held Melitopol journalist Iryna Levchenko prisoner for over 3 years (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, August 25th)

Progress of the war

Fears in west that Putin wants further escalation (Meduza, 31 August)

Kyiv under daytime Russian drone attack (Ukrainska Pravda, August 30)

A bridge, missiles and billions in revenue: North Korea’s role in Russia’s war deepens again (Kyiv Independent, August 28)

News from Ukraine

August 29 — Day of Remembrance of the Defenders of Ukraine Who Died in the Struggle for Ukraine’s Independence, Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity (Crimea Platform, August 29th)

Operation Forrest Gump: anti-corruption agencies target Ukrainian criminal money laundering operation (Ukrainska Pravda, August 28)

Ukraine anti-corruption agencies charge businessman in raiding case (Kyiv Independent, August 28)

Petition urging Zelensky to talk to independent media (Kyiv Independent August 28)

Ukraine MP charged in graft case flees abroad (Kyiv Independent August 28)

Despite frustration, majority of Ukrainians want future in NATO (Kyiv Independent August 28)

What Ukraine’s energy system got done this summer – and won’t finish before winter (Zn.Ua, August 27)

Beyond refuge: how Lviv is adapting to displacement (New Eastern Europe, August 26th)

Jail sentence for Ukrainian Trotskyist is an assault on free speech (People and Nature, August 24th)

War-related news from Russia

Running on empty: Russia’s fuel shortage is here to stay (The Insider, 31 August)

Russia’s second biggest refinery targeted by Ukraine forces (Kyiv Independent August 30)

Russia’s Rostov oblast declares emergency over Black Sea exports (Ukrainska Pravda, August 29)

Food for naught: Russia's war has left grain producers close to bankruptcy (The Insider, August 28th)

Political prisoner Andrei Trofimov has appeared in court, but is not out of danger (People and Nature, August 28th)

Kursk, 2024: what happened to Russian conscripts (iStories, 27 August)

Unhealthy Lifestyle (The Russian Reader, August 27th)

Healthcare in wartime: how women’s labour is changing (Posle.Media, 26 August)

Russian employers less likely to hire veterans who volunteered for Ukraine war (Prio, August 25th)

Kazakh refinery to process Russian crude and send fuel back to Russia (Kyiv Independent, August 25)

Comment and analysis

Ukraine needs international solidarity as Russia escalates (Ukraine Solidarity Network US, 31 August)

Aleksandr Podrabinek: Space can’t kill puppets (The Russian Reader, 28 August)

From social media to politics: Poland’s Ukraine debate (New Eastern Europe, August 24th)

Research of human rights abuses

Lithuania allocates €600,000 to rescue abducted Ukrainian children (Kyiv Independent, August 30)

First trial in Ukraine of a Russian POW for rape as war crime ends in 12-year sentence (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, August 25th)

International solidarity

Campaign: free imprisoned Zaporizhzhya nuclear workers (Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, 27 August)

Aid Ukraine: Build the Convoy (International Viewpoint, August 27th)

Also not to be missed

Kremlin-friendly AfD eyes election victory in Germany (Kyiv Independent August 30)

Poland: Russian intelligence officers on the streets (Eastern Frontier Initiative, 27 August)
🔴This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. More information at Ukraine Information Group.

We are also on twitter. Our aim is to circulate information in English that to the best of our knowledge is reliable. If you have something you think we should include, please send it to 2U022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com.


We are now on Facebook and Substack! Please subscribe and tell friends. Better still, people can email us at 2022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com, and we’ll send them the bulletin direct every Monday. The full-scale Russian assault on Ukraine is going into its third year: we’ll keep information and analysis coming, for as long as it takes.

The bulletin is also stored on line here.

To receive the bulletin regularly, send your email to:
2022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com.
To stop it, please reply with the word “STOP” in the subject field.

News From Ukraine 💣 Bulletin 210

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)