The Insanity of Nazis in Ukraine: The Imprisonment of Socialist Bogdan Syrotjuk for “Treason”

By David Starr

Nazis have been an influential entity in Ukraine, e.g., during World War II, and now with their reemergence after the 2014 U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine where they came out of the woodwork to attain positions in government and have status in Ukrainian society.

The Ukrainian Left in turn hasn’t exactly had it easy in coping with the current political situation in Ukraine. One individual has stood out and that is Socialist Bogdan Syrotjuk, a Ukrainian writer who has criticized a morally bankrupt government led by Volodymyr Zelensky. The government is responsible for trying to surrender Ukraine’s sovereignty to western capitalist interests. 

Syrotjuk has also criticized the war in Ukraine. This prompted the Ukrainian security apparatus, i.e., the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to arrest him in April of 2024. A court charged him with high treason, which would carry a life sentence.

But Syrotjuk’s only “crime” was to write on the political situation. According to Left Voice, the court based their charges on six articles he wrote. “What was criminal about these articles? They opposed the war, criticized the Ukrainian government, challenged the glorification of Ukrainian nationalist forces, and called for unity between Ukrainian and Russian workers.” He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. 

Syrotjuk attempted to establish the “Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (YGBL) and one of his writings “citied by the court was a 2023 May Day speech entitled ‘For the Unity of the Working Class of Russia and Ukraine!’ Syrotjuk also wrote “about ‘the crimes of the Banderovites against the Ukrainian people,’ denounces the rehabilitation of [Nazi collaborator] Stepan Bandera and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in contemporary Ukraine, recounting their collaboration with Nazi Germany and violence against Ukrainians, Jews, Poles, and Soviet supporters.”

Syrotjuk’s “writings explicitly opposed the Russian invasion and the Putin government.” Ironic since the Ukrainian authorities accused Syrotjuk of being a Russian spy.

In all, Syrotjuk “is being punished not for assisting the Russian war effort, but for opposing the war from a socialist and international standpoint, and for exposing the far-right Ukrainian government’s ‘national heroes’ as Nazi collaborators.”

The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) announced the publishing of a book entitled (I’ll use the English translation) “The War in Ukraine and the Struggle for Socialism: The Case of Bogdan Syrotjuk.” It is published by Mehring Verlag, a publishing house in Germany. And it is edited by Johannes Stern, editor-in-chief of the German-language edition of the WSWS. There is preparation to publish the book in English and other languages.

Regarding the Russia-Ukraine war, “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.”

Stern’s foreword for the book is quoted, among the examples:

“Putin’s war was not a progressive defense 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.

“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…

“Bogdan’s arrest is inseparably bound up with [the overall situation]. The stronger opposition to the war grows, and 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.”

The Katie Halper show also detailed the overall situation of Bogdan Syrotjuk with Stern as a guest on the show. 

Ideally-speaking, while the Russian invasion was wrong, the West, namely the U.S. empire and NATO, is at the root causes of the war. The West promised that NATO would move “not one inch” eastward. That was a lie and not a shocking one. And it is the West that has aided Ukraine’s Nazis.