Counter-Currents
1,582 words
Author’s Note: This is my opening statement in my debate with Mark Collett on the Ukraine war hosted by Joel Davis on YouTube on Saturday, October 15th. I got cut off at the end. The last three paragraphs were written for the very end of the debate, but by then the format had broken down, and there was no way to get it in.
I want to thank Joel for hosting and moderating, and Mark Collett for joining me in what I would like to bill as a civil airing of differences on the Ukraine war.
The first question we need to ask is: Why are White Nationalists commenting on this war in the first place? I am under no illusions that my opinions on this war, one way or another, will have any effect whatsoever on the consequences. So why talk about it at all?
Because even if my commentary will have no short-term effect on the war, I am playing a much longer game. I am an advocate for White Nationalism. As I define it, White Nationalism is a species of ethnonationalism, the view that the best world order consists of sovereign nation-states for all peoples who aspire to them.
Ethnonationalism is the best global order for two principal reasons: First, it respects the differences between peoples and races and secures their own spaces in which they can live according to their own identities; second, multiracial, multicultural empires are cauldrons of ethnic strife, hatred, and the erasure of identity. By separating warring tribes into their own homelands, ethnonationalism promotes peace.
You can buy Greg Johnson’s The Year America Died here.
Ethnonationalism is opposed to imperialism in all its forms. Imperialism is a form of multiculturalism, in which different peoples are subject to a single political order, which again encourages hatred, conflicts, and cultural destruction. Ethnonationalists do not, however, oppose trade and cooperation between sovereign states, including the creation of customs unions to facilitate commerce and defensive pacts to deter aggression.
The main reason I comment on the Ukraine war is to show the relevance of the White Ethnonationalist idea. Russia is the world’s largest land empire, and it used to be much larger, embracing Finland, the Baltic states, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, the Caucasus, and the Central Asian Stans. After the Second World War, it ruled the Warsaw Pact nations as well. After the collapse of Communism, these nations gained their independence.
Post-Communist Russia is an obscenely rapacious oligarchy ruled largely by former Communists, including state security agents like Putin, tyrannizing over a profoundly degraded and demoralized populace with astonishingly high rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, divorce, abortion, HIV infection, and domestic violence. Imagine an America where, outside of New York and Los Angeles, everything else consists of West Virginia and Indian reservations.
Russia’s ruling elite openly mourns the collapse of the Soviet Empire and dreams of putting it back together. Russia fought two bloody wars against Chechens trying to gain their independence. Russia uses ethnic Russian minorities in neighboring states as fifth columnists and pretexts for interventions. Russia has fomented Russian riots in the Baltic states. Russia has fomented secessionist and irredentist wars in the Caucasus, Moldova, and Ukraine. About the only former imperial possession Russia has not meddled in is Belarus, a wholly subservient satellite state.
After the collapse of Communism, Ukraine had a referendum on independence. Every single region voted for independence from Moscow. In 1994, Russia and the United States were parties to the Budapest Memorandum, which recognized Ukraine’s 1991 borders in exchange for nuclear disarmament. Despite this, Russia has worked for decades to turn Ukraine into a Belarus-style satellite. Ukraine overwhelmingly favored pursuing European Union membership. In 2013, Russia tried to prevent this with economic sanctions. Then Putin simply bought Ukraine’s President, Viktor Yanukovich, who abruptly reversed course on EU membership, which sparked the Maidan revolution, a glorious outburst of Ukrainian national populism which Russia slanders as an American intelligence operation. Meanwhile, Russia launched its own military and intelligence ops in Ukraine, seizing control of Crimea and fomenting separatist movements in the Donbas. Now, eight years later, Russia has invaded Ukraine with the express aim of “regime change” and “de-Nazification.”
Ukraine, Russians claim, is a fake country. Ukrainians think they are a different people, but this is false consciousness, which they must be educated out of by destroying their language and national identity. This is a war of imperial conquest, pure and simple. Its frank aim is cultural genocide. Its pretexts — the Donbas “genocide,” NATO encroachment — are transparently cynical, not to be taken seriously.
If you believe that distinct peoples deserve their own homelands, if you believe that wars of conquest and cultural genocide are evil things, then of course you should sympathize with Ukraine over Russia.
But again, our sympathies are not going to change this war one way or another. The only reason I comment on it at all is to uphold the correct ethnonationalist principles and show their relevance, because I hope that in the very long run, if we can get enough people of vision and good will on our side, ethnonationalism might create a better world, free from horrors like the Ukraine war.
I do, however, wish to make one brief nod to Realpolitik, specifically with regard to the White Nationalist movement itself, because in this context, the things I say actually can make an immediate difference.
Vladimir Putin is very bad for White Nationalism: in Russia, in Ukraine, and in the West. After taking power, Putin passed sweeping anti-“hate” legislation, which was used to target not just outright National Socialists but milquetoast immigration reformers. Putin also set up a fake nationalist movement, Nashi, that combines the usual raft of conservative cultural values with Russian imperialism, which is a multicultural ideology opposed in principle to all forms of ethnic nationalism.
Putin’s fake Russian nationalist movement has aggressively courted nationalists in the West. I remember in 2014, when Leonid Savin, one of Dugin’s followers, submitted an article on “Donbas Ethnonationalism” to Counter-Currents. I was offended. Did he really think I was that stupid? I remember a conversation with a Eurasianist who said that suitcases of Russian and Iranian cash could appear if one gave platform to their propaganda. I was pretty sure he was dreaming.
Beyond that, you can’t get to an ethnonationalist world if you are suddenly willing to shill for Russian imperialism and anti-nationalism. Today our movement’s only advantages are the truth and the credibility one wins by speaking it. Compromising one’s principles and credibility for . . . what, exactly? . . . is simply self-defeating. But, given the behavior of some nationalists in the US and Europe, I suspect they were taken in.
This is a battle I can fight and win, which is why Counter-Currents has taken a leading role in combatting the Russian subversion of the White Nationalist movement since 2014.
As a White Nationalist, my worst nightmare would be a Donald Trump dictatorship. Why? Because Trump is committed to a multicultural, multiracial, civic nationalist vision of America. Given that, even if he built a wall, the white race in America would be relentlessly eroded by differential fertility, miscegenation, and legal immigration — and under a Trump dictatorship, there would be no way to change it. Trump would turn countless potential Right-wing dissidents into plan trusters, who would embrace and make excuses for white genocide as long as Trump appealed to their conservative values and authoritarian personalities. Imagine the fate of Kevin MacDonald under the dictatorship of the man who pardoned Jonathan Pollard. Imagine the fate of Jared Taylor under the dictatorship of the man who gave us criminal justice reform and proposed the Platinum Plan.
That nightmare is reality under Putin’s dictatorship today. That nightmare is what he wishes to impose on Ukraine, which has one of the largest, best-organized, most radical, and most righteous White Nationalist movements in the world today. To that, I hope every principled White Nationalist will join me in saying: Hell, no. That’s no way to run a world.
How to end this war? If there were justice, Russia would go back to its 2013 borders, pay reparations, and put Putin’s head on a spike on the Kremlin wall. Sadly, there won’t be justice. There will just be a negotiated settlement. But there won’t be a negotiated settlement until Putin is beaten on the battlefield. So first military aid, then diplomacy.
If the negotiations were conducted according to ethnonationalist principles, then the ethnic strife in the East would be terminated in two ways: moving borders and moving people. There should be fair referendums voted on solely by people who occupied the disputed territories in 2013. The 2014 Crimea referendum and the recent referenda in the east, conducted after ethnic cleansing and under military occupation, are insulting farces. The result of fair referenda would probably be Crimea staying with Russia and Russian separatists in the Donbas migrating to Russia.
Of course, Ukrainians would not trust Russia to keep any such agreement, and for good reason. They didn’t honor the Budapest Memorandum, after all. But Russia probably would respect Ukraine’s borders if she became a member of NATO or an equivalent mutual defense pact. Indeed, this war never would have happened if Ukraine were a member of NATO.
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20 comments
I’m becoming less partial as this drags on. Yes the Ukrainians have a right to self-determination and a lot of the nationalists are based, but their struggle has been co-opted by the globalist system that is funding the war. NATO has acted and is continuing to act recklessly in this conflict and provoking it by refusing to negotiate or discuss a ceasefire. Their goals as of yet are as nebulous as Russia’s. The worst aspects of the Western permanent ruling class are pushing for this conflict, without regard for peace, while keeping the Ukrainian nationalists who do most of the fighting well outside the realms of power within the Ukrainian government. The powers that be would like nothing more than to plunge Europe into an ongoing war. When I look at Ukraine, where I used to see a worthy people standing up to Russian encroachment, now more and more I see the J’s of Biden’s psychotic state department at work, laughing while they gladly toss the rest of Europe into an energy crisis. And the limp-wristed European “leaders” a.k.a. USA vassals all chime in saying they’d happily sacrifice our wellbeing for their masters’ project.
Right now I don’t give a shit who wins and neither should anyone else because this pointless war is in no one’s interests except the wealthy. NATO and Russia both acted horribly, ignorantly and foolishly and they both deserve this conflict, and no one is in the right. All I want now is for this idiotic slugfest to cease.
I hope when its all done and dusted and I pray that is sooner than later Ukraine will despite being territorially smaller be almost entirely Ukrainian having lost its large Russian minority and this in turn will mean Russia becoming more Russian as it adds the ethnic Russian population of those Eastern oblast to its population.
I have family friends who are Ukrainians and Russians so its been pretty awful watching this all unfold.
Some Good things about Putin
He pardoned Ed Snowden, an American hero.
I believe he would have pardoned Julian Assange had he gone to Russia instead of England. JA is an international hero. Of course, this is a counter-factual claim that I can’t prove but it seems likely.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn praised Putin. As everyone on this website knows AS is easily the greatest Soviet dissident of the 20th Century. Steve Sailer( a brilliant man in my opinion) claimed AS was the greatest writer of the 20th Century. That puts him ahead of Tom Wolfe whom Steve knows very well.
Putin gave a speech recently, last year I believe, where he said they would never have fag marriage in Russia. I think that is magnificent given that faggotry itself is a mental illness (a position that the American Psychiatric Associate held until 1973 and suddenly changed for no reason) and fag marriage is Societal perversion.
Putin does not believe I think, that it is possible to turn boys into girls and vice versa.
I would certainly rather be governed by Putin than by Biden or Justin Trudeau or any of the leaders of western Europe outside of the new Italian lady.
Ukraine has been part of Russia since 1783 when it was either purchased or conquered by Russia under Catherine the Great. It wasn’t until 1954 that the Communist dictator Nikita Kruschev split Ukraine off as a separate Republic in the Soviet Union. So, if you defend Ukraine as a country independent of Russia, you are defending Communist borders.
Putin has tried to negotiate a settlement to the Ukraine problem since 2014. But the “West”under Jewish Neocon control has refused to negotiate.
Ukraine has been shelling the Donbass Russians since at least 2014 and this is mentioned on many websites I respect such as LewRockwell, Paul Craig Roberts and others. At least 14000 Russian people have been killled.
While many of Greg’s criticisms are certainly valid, I still think VP is more positive than negative and he does not insult my intelligence the way Biden does.
Ukraine has been part of Russia since 1783 when it was either purchased or conquered by Russia under Catherine the Great. It wasn’t until 1954 that the Communist dictator Nikita Kruschev split Ukraine off as a separate Republic in the Soviet Union. So, if you defend Ukraine as a country independent of Russia, you are defending Communist borders.
Here we need to get the facts right. The first Ukrainian independent state was formed in 1917. The Ukrainian USSR existed from 1922-1991. Seems like you are confusing this with the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine which was a decision attributed to Khrushchev and was done due to economic reasons in 1954 . Some parts of the Ukrainian USSR had earlier been given to Russia and Belarus in the 1930s so that was nothing unique.
The borders in Soviet Union were drawn according to who was the national majority within the region. The regions that became part of Ukraine had primarily been colonized by Ukrainians, though under rule of Russian crown. There were also regions outside contemporary Ukraine populated mainly by Ukrainians, like Taganrog, parts of Belgorod and Krasnodar regions and also some far east enclaves. So if following the majority principle one could argue that the Ukrainian territory should have been larger.
Today’s Ukraine have historically been ruled by Poles/Austrians and Russians prior to its independence but during these times there has always been a Ukrainian people with its own language and culture. You can check old censuses from Russian Empire in the 19th century, Ukrainians were already then regarded as a distinct ethnic group.
Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Finns etc also didn’t have their own nations until the 20th century. The former Yugoslavian republics have only existed as independent nations since the 1990s. All nations have been formed at some certain moment in history. For some reason it only disturbs some people that Ukraine hasn’t existed since the beginning of time.
But in the end, this is a question of self-recognition. Scottish actually have their undisputed separate and unique culture, but chose to be British nevertheless. The people in Ukraine recognizes themselves as Ukrainians. That’s something the leaders of Russian Federation have to deal with.
Sigh.
I’m 24 % Russian, descendent from Russian Nobility, Catherine the Great’s first son. 100 years ago, my grandfather was fighting in the White Army in these areas against Trotsky’s Red Army.
Before Bolshevism, Russia and Ukraine were pretty much one nation, one society. Ukraine was the home of the Cossacks and the anti White Js know that.
We should always support “No more white brother wars, or foolish divisions over minor linguistic, Christian sectarian divisions”. Our people are facing the Great Replacement pretty much everywhere except Iceland.
This horrible Ukraine vs Russia war/slaughter is pretty much the same as White Scottish vs White English, or Irish Americans siding with the worst Js, Blacks, homos because of some chip on the shoulder from the years of the Irish Potato Famine.
Just look who’s the leader of Ukraine now – vulgar J comedian – it would be the same if somehow John Liebowitz Stuart or Harvey Weinstein was made leader of the United States.
No thank you Js.
No Putin and his court aren’t perfect – but just look who Putin’s enemies are – same people replacing us, same people forcing the worst forms of porn, drag shows on our children, deplatforming us, inciting Blacks to riot – yeah the Eternal J and various cuckservatives, Christian Zionists – supposedly this will bring Jesus back sooner and the good White Christians will get “Raptured” (nuclear war from this Ukraine vs Russia White brother war? No Thanks).
We should be neutral in yet another White brother war, oppose reckless $ 40 billion military spending, that $ money should be used for opioid rehab in Kentucky.
Then why Jack Ryan instead of Sergei Saltykov. Or maybe Orlov?
He pardoned Ed Snowden, an American hero.
Of course he would also rescue other American heroes if he only could. Ames, Hanssen, Pelton, Nicholson, all Walkers etc. Earlier the Soviet Union alike rescued many British and American heroes, like Burgess and Maclean, Kim Philby, George Blake, Vernon and Mitchell, much later Howard. Why not? Nothing unusual, just (espionage) business. A hero for one side is a traitor for another, and vice versa.
As far as I know from some infos, Snowden in Moscow is not of high opinion of Putin’s regime at all, but should keep silent. In reality he has got a softer, but still life-long imprisonment in the foreign state. Blake, who died two years ago in the age of 98, completely blind, also was not of high opinion of Putin and Russia of 2000’s and later. I do not know if it would be better for him NOT to escape from the British prison in 1966, but to sit there to the end (maybe be pardonned) and then to live free in UK or in Holland or elsewhere.
Maybe he really thinks that Ukrainians are fighting for a Jewish clown, or for the Western values like LGBT, democraZy, freedoms, human rights, diversity and other freemasonic BS. In reality Ukrainians are just the peoples of farmers and petite bourgeoisie. And as every farmer everywhere in the world and always in the world history they simply defend their lives, their lands and property. The gov’t can give some lip service to the West speaking about “western democratic values”, but they do it only to get help and weapons. They say what they are supposed to say. Just like Mustafa Kemal Pasha did in the Independence War, using Soviet military help to liberate his country but without any wish to buy some kind of communism there.
To compare one can remember the Anglo-Boer Wars. The word ‘boer’ means just this – “a farmer”. They fought for their lands, their lives and their property and not for any “high ideas”.
“farmers and petite bourgeoisie”
Exactly the people hated the most by marxists. Free people not depending on state. This is why Putin hates them so much.
Yes, Putin’s Russia is the state capitalism in its worst and most brutal form with imperialist foreign policy. And it does not give any small social guarantees or services to the common people, which they have had even under Brezhnev and Gorbachov.
Finally after years of larping online the dissident right has an opportunity to participate in an armed struggle for blood and soil and they choose to cower behind their keyboards regurgitating Kremlin propaganda having convinced themselves that killing white national socialists is bAsEd.
This movement is a clown brigate. Time to purge.
Have mercy and don’t give up on us yet — I have a friend in England, who is a minister, and was helping with an orphanage in Ukraine since 2012. He also was friends with a couple families there. We are both now sending a bit of money over to the people we know (he has visited 4 times, and I was planning to go in 2020, which didn’t work out due to Covid) to buy food, medicine and firewood due to failure of the electric system there, etc. I’m mainly doing this as a White Nationalist since Ukraine was reliably 90%+ White before the war. I would do the same with Russians if the war was in reverse. Russians lost upward of 75 million Whites from 1917 to 1991. I’m furious with Putin for pressing this useless war, regardless of the politics on either side. Women and children and the elderly are suffering the most. Any ideas how we can work to stop it?
Sorry, you cannot stop the war. Maybe Putin himself cannot do it either. Everybody says that he is a good tactician, but a bad strategist. If it is really so, than it simply means, that the strategy for him is prescribed and decided by somebody else. And I do not think, that it happens in Russia. Much more I would suspect the Maoist regime in Bejing. Moreover I suspect that the Chinese virus and this war are both stages of a Chinese master plan (but I am a mad conspiracy theorist, of course).
You are not. Of course. You are very well read, which in my books trumps everything else.
A Romanian saying “looks like things are arranged by someone hand”. The question, whose hand, has the obvious answer. But Putin is a bloody idiot with genocidal impulses so he made, probably, the biggest blunder in history.
For White Nationalists, there is one underlying truth for siding with Ukraine in this horrid mess of a war, and that is — Demographics: Ukraine is approximating 95% White. About 75% of Ukraine is White Ukrainians, and about 20% White Russians who choose to live in Ukraine for whatever reason. The Russians live mostly in the Donbas and other eastern towns along the Russian border, but they do this there and want to remain. Yet Russia is yanking them out and probably bombing and killing quite a few of their own.
We here in America can help the people in the various bombed out areas by contributing to the Red Cross (I think) or other charities in order to get food to women and children who have remained behind, due to destroyed rail lines, but mostly due to extended family members being too old or ill to leave. We have got to put politics aside in this horrid human disaster, and help OUR OWN PEOPLE — if we are serious about White Nationalists, as I see it. I am blessed with know a minister in England who traveled to Ukraine several times to help out a children’s orphanage in 2012 through 2018. Several of the older kids grew up and married and now have a baby or young child. So, I’m sending a little money through his connection to support 2 or 3 families, with food, firewood (there is no electricity due to bombs) and medicine and help others to make the trip to the border to exit Ukraine, but that route is very dangerous now.
We’ll, enough sob story — it’s the same in any war zone. But we have to forget politics — who is guilty of starting the war, etc. — and turn our attention to the human disaster there. I am also in contact with a Ukrainian Orthodox church in L.A. — is there one near you? I would think they are the most reliable for sending aid. Just a thought.
The best, truest, and the most courageous political piece regarding the current war. Mr. Greg Johnson is the voice of reason, simplicity, and clarity. To the desperation of so many too accustomed to bully, and bribe.
We need a very well defined set of Principles of White Nationalism. This way much of the inane contrarian noise will be muted. Much of the negativity, and distrust will be also dispelled. Looks like WN needs to reinvent itself starting with its purest roots.
Shameful how killing Whites, and blaming the victims are acceptable as long as they serve the Russian agenda. Simply shameful. That’s why we need a simple set of White Principles, and Laws.
Russian-Ukrainian war is extremely important because it brings so many things under scrutiny and into plain light. We find out so many things, why things are the way they are and who is in fact behind those things.
Outstanding analysis. This post illustrates the value to intellectual leaders of political movements of having seriously studied philosophy. The thought on display here is much better than anything I have seen in the mainstream media, including by professors and foreign policy professionals.
I am convinced now to support Ukraine, though I have not abandoned my overall position that we should work for peace at the earliest time, even if that means Ukraine’s making territorial concessions. Our own armaments are being badly depleted; it’s costing us money in other ways; the war’s hurting the global economy; any nuclear detonation on European soil would be an ecological (and perhaps other kinds of) disaster; it’s dividing prowhites across the planet, and distracting us from our core concerns with defending our race and civilization. The sooner the war is over, whatever its final territorial and political outcome, the better.
that we should work for peace at the earliest time
Maybe, but now it’s too late. Putin and his regime were fed up by the West, supported by the West and financed by the West. Just as it has been with Comrade Stalin 80-90 years ago.
I think if somebody wants to help, he can help. Someway like the cowboys in “The Magnificent Seven” have helped the Mexican peasants in their conflict with the Mexican robbers. Without asking the Big White (Grand-)Father in the White House and even without the help of (Air) Cavalry.
I haven’t watched the debate but wonder if it was a good idea to have one? I’ve been involved in British nationalist politics for 40 years, and in one party I was in at least (the National Front) there were some issues so contentious we agreed to disagree and didn’t debate it for fear of creating discord. The monarchy was one such issue, with the party having loyal monarchists as well as republicans.
I wonder if there’s also an age split on the Russia Ukraine issue? Lots of us who remember the Warsaw Pact and a communist system are face anti-Communists.
I wonder if there’s also an age split on the Russia Ukraine issue? Lots of us who remember the Warsaw Pact and the Communist system are fierce anti-Communists.
The younger generation have never known this era, and might not realise the strong feelings of us old ‘uns have on the issue and how we see Putin and the Russian system through that lens.
This is the way to irrelevance. Simply it is discarding everything good that have been done since nineteenth century. Only for the dubious advantage of keeping all the cranks, uneducated, and jesters into the fold.
Old nationalist, third generation nationalist here.
Russia is what it is, Christian or not, communist or not. An evil power hell bent to destroy Europeans for at least three hundred years. Nothing will changed that.
Especially not some unbalanced individuals clowning the manners of a midget clowning a Mafia don and an secret agent. What can be more ridiculous than this: clowns clowning a clown clowning a gangster.
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