Pirani writes "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."
No, it doesn't beggar the imagination at all. Code Pink and PSL receive large amounts of money from the Chinese Communist Party-connected Roy Singham and the African Peoples Socialist Party got money from Aleksandr Ionov. Those are just the above board cases. An important part of Putin's strategy is to have agents and assets all around the political spectrum, and given the position of WSWS, it wouldn't surprise me in the least that the are Putin assets and even paid agents in WSWS. Yes, it's true that WSWS "opposes" Putin, but that is out of one side of their mouth. Then out of the other, the cover up for him. For example, I went to a meeting of theirs several years ago in which they denied the fact of the war crimes committed by the Russian forces in Bucha. We see this sort of double speak from neo-Nazis who say they don't like Hitler and then turn around and say "but we just want a reexamination of the actual facts surrounding the Holocaust."
As for Syrotiuk himself: There was clothing with Russian insignia allegedly found in the basement of the building where he lives. There was no legal proof that that material belonged to him, but what "beggars the imagination" is that it did not. Consider a hypothetical situation in which such clothing with Nazi insignia had been found in a similar location in a building during WW II. So, yes, I think Syrotiuk was probably a conscious Russian agent.
The fact that he and WSWS spout "left" sounding phrases means nothing. Does anybody remember Borotba? They claimed to be communists and all sorts of things. They had me fooled back in 2014. Then it turned out they were Russian agents.
Socialists need to stop this nonsense of letting Putin and his defenders off the hook. I remember when Howie Hawkins debated Margaret Kimberly. He refused to point out her complicity with fascists at the AGMR conference. It was the same when Bill Fletcher debated Medea Benjamin and said he considers her to be a comrade and failed to point out her support for another dictatorship - the Iran dictatorship. Without drawing these pictures, it's nearly impossible for the uninitiated to understand what the difference is really all about. It was the same - even worse, in fact - at the recent Porto Alegre "anti fascist" conference that wasn't an anti-fascist conference at all, as I've pointed out. (See: the International "Anti-Fascist" conference that wasn't.)
John Reimann
The fact that he and WSWS spout "left" sounding phrases means nothing. Does anybody remember Borotba? They claimed to be communists and all sorts of things. They had me fooled back in 2014. Then it turned out they were Russian agents.
Socialists need to stop this nonsense of letting Putin and his defenders off the hook. I remember when Howie Hawkins debated Margaret Kimberly. He refused to point out her complicity with fascists at the AGMR conference. It was the same when Bill Fletcher debated Medea Benjamin and said he considers her to be a comrade and failed to point out her support for another dictatorship - the Iran dictatorship. Without drawing these pictures, it's nearly impossible for the uninitiated to understand what the difference is really all about. It was the same - even worse, in fact - at the recent Porto Alegre "anti fascist" conference that wasn't an anti-fascist conference at all, as I've pointed out. (See: the International "Anti-Fascist" conference that wasn't.)
John Reimann
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