Mehring Verlag, the publishing house of the ICFI in Germany, has published the highly topical volume Der Ukrainekrieg und der Kampf für Sozialismus. Der Fall Bogdan Syrotjuk (The War in Ukraine and the Struggle for Socialism: The Case of Bogdan Syrotjuk). It is edited by Johannes Stern, editor-in-chief of the German-language edition of the WSWS. The foreword is published here. Translations into English and other languages are in preparation.
Bogdan Syrotjuk, a young Ukrainian socialist, has been held in prison since April 2024. The Ukrainian government accuses him of “high treason”; he faces life imprisonment. The so-called evidence against him consists of articles Syrotjuk wrote for the World Socialist Web Site. His actual offence: he opposes the war in Ukraine from the standpoint of socialist internationalism and fights for the unity of the Ukrainian and Russian working classes—against the war policies of the regimes in Kiev and Moscow, as well as against NATO.
This book provides the first comprehensive account of Bogdan’s case, brings together his own writings and analyses the historical and political causes of the war in Ukraine. The persecution of those opposed to the war reveals the true nature of the conflict: it is not about democracy, but rather about geopolitical and economic interests. Particularly in Germany, where—85 years after the Nazis’ war of extermination—a war against Russia is once again being waged, this book provides guidance in the struggle against militarism and nationalism—and for a socialist future.
In the book’s foreword Johannes Stern explains:
Bogdan is being persecuted not for any crime, but because of his political convictions. His trial is a political show trial. It is directed not only against a single young opponent of war. It is directed against the World Socialist Web Site, against the International Committee of the Fourth International and against all socialist opposition to war, imperialism and fascism.
Stern rejects the lie that Bogdan is an agent of the Kremlin and writes:
No other political tendency has so consistently exposed the reactionary character of the Putin regime as Trotskyism. The International Committee of the Fourth International condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 from the very first day. It explained that Putin’s war was not a progressive defence against the imperialist threat posed by NATO, but a reactionary response by the Russian oligarchy, which emerged out of the Stalinist destruction of the Soviet Union and the reintroduction of capitalism. The invasion does not serve to defend Russian or Ukrainian workers, but divides them and plays into the hands of the imperialist powers.
But opposition to the Russian invasion does not mean support for NATO. The Ukraine war is not a war for democracy and national self-determination. It is an imperialist war prepared over decades by the United States, NATO and the European powers. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States and its allies have pursued a policy of gradual military and geopolitical expansion eastward. The far-right coup in Kiev in 2014, backed by Washington and Berlin, the systematic arming of Ukraine and the country’s integration into NATO strategy against Russia were decisive stages on the road to war. ...
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian workers and young people have already been killed or maimed in a war that is not being fought in their interests, but in the interests of the NATO powers and the oligarchies on both sides of the front.
Bogdan’s arrest is inseparably bound up with this development. The stronger opposition to the war grows, and the more openly the character of the Zelensky regime as an instrument of NATO and the Ukrainian oligarchy is exposed, the more brutally the state cracks down on all opposition. Bogdan was arrested because his voice, his writings and the work of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists stand for a political perspective that attacks the war at its root by mobilizing the working class against all capitalist governments and for socialism.
This perspective is the red thread running through the present volume.
We urge our readers to order the new book, study it carefully and distribute it as widely as possible. Sign the petition for Bogdan’s release and support the international campaign.
Der Ukrainekrieg und der Kampf für Sozialismus. Der Fall Bogdan Syrotjuk (The War in Ukraine and the Struggle for Socialism. The Case of Bogdan Syrotjuk) Johannes Stern (ed.), Published July 2026. 138 pages ISBN 978-3-88634-153-5. Order here from Mehring Verlag. €12.00.
For further political reading, we also recommend the following books by David North (available in German by Mehring Verlag and in English by Mehring Books): Wohin geht Amerika: Faschismus oder Sozialismus (published in English under the title: OLIGARCHY. Trump and the Breakdown of American Democracy), Ein Warnruf: Sozialismus gegen Krieg (Sounding the Alarm: Socialism Against War) and 30 Jahre Krieg: Amerikas Griff nach der Weltherrschaft 1990–2020 (A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony: 1990–2016).