The trope that we are sensitive to criticism while our problems only continue to fester is an all too common one in the capitalist media. Unfortunately for anticommunists, if they think that they are a viable alternative, then they have another think coming. Case in point:

Smart also quoted an anonymous Ukrainian official who said that Pugliese is an “activist” known in Kyiv for “his public anti-Ukrainian rhetoric,” which “coincides with Russian propagandist narratives.” This individual reportedly said that “Ukraine would consider him to be, writing in all capital letters,” an “UNDESIRABLE PERSON.”

My guess is that this official came from the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, which a few months later accused Pugliese of promoting “anti-Ukrainian rhetoric and narratives aimed at demonizing the Ukrainian military,” not least of all with social media posts in which the Ottawa Citizen journalist “repeatedly spoke about the so-called problem of nazism in Ukraine, particularly related to the supposed nazi regiment ‘Azov’. Such rhetoric about the ‘Ukrainian Nazis’ clearly echoes the Russian narrative, which Putin used as an excuse for his invasion of Ukraine.”

[…]

In early 2014, Chris Alexander “committed to work with” the nationalist Ukrainian Canadian Congress “to take immediate and concrete action condemning Russia’s continued economic and political coercion of Ukraine.” That summer, he had an awkward moment at the annual Ukrainian festival in Toronto. A neo-Nazi from “Right Sector Canada” set up a table to raise money for “anything.” When the CBC interviewed Chris Alexander at the festival, and asked him what he thought about this, the Minister fumbled as Right Sector flags waved in the background.

“You’re telling me something second-hand that is a rumor that I have no ability to comment on in a responsible way,” Alexander said, standing in front of a booth for the largest Ukrainian-Canadian financial institution, which is also an OUN-B front, and has supported the Banderites’ book publishing operation in Ukraine.

For the first anniversary of the February 2014 coup d’etat in Kyiv, an important far-right Ukrainian politician, Andriy Parubiy, took a trip to Canada. Parubiy, a former neo[fascist] paramilitary leader, commanded the “Maidan Self Defense Force” that provided the muscle for the “Euromaidan” protests that started in late 2013. A few months later, he was secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, and by 2015 served as the first deputy chairman of Ukrainian parliament. In this capacity, Parubiy took several meetings in Ottawa, and addressed the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) in Toronto.

“I thank the Ukrainian community,” said Parubiy, “which to a large degree displays the [pro-western, nationalist] position of Ukraine, and obviously the [Canadian] government orientates itself on the position of the community.” At the UCC event, he appeared alongside Chris Alexander, who donned a handkerchief from the far-right-led Maidan Self Defense, and made a warmongering speech to Toronto’s nationalistic Ukrainian community.

We know, as you know, that Vladimir Putin is only going to face his comeuppance and his whole mad nightmare is only going to come apart at the seams, when the whole world is standing against him, with every option on the table […] This is the biggest issue facing the world today, in my view […] What is happening in eastern Ukraine has roots that go as far back as […] the Second World War, but it really has to do with the incomplete process of ending the existence of the Soviet Union for good — ending the oppression and the Faustian bargain that had been made in the Second World War with Stalin’s Soviet Union, for good.

[…]

We must speak out against this dangerous ideology [of Russian revanchism] which is present in our own city of Toronto, which is present across Canada, which comes to use through state-sponsored Russian channels that are preaching absolute poison! For Vladimir Putin’s media handlers to be calling the government of Ukraine, calling us Ukraine supporters, [and] to be calling the whole western world “Nazis” is nothing less than reprehensible, and we must be taking the lead, not only in fighting, and supporting those who are fighting, not only in making sure that Ukraine gets all the support that it needs, but in denouncing one of the greatest perversions of history that I have seen in my lifetime […] Ladies and gentlemen, let’s join that fight as well.

There are ideas as stake here, there is ideology at stake here, there is history at stake here, and all of our democracies! All of our democracies depend on the outcome of this struggle. It is going to be a great struggle. We are just at the beginning of this struggle, and I think when I see groups like this assembled, when I see determination on the level that is plain from all of your faces, I know that the future of Ukraine is still bright. I know the ties that bind Canada to Ukraine have never been stronger, and I know that Canada’s leadership in the world on this issue, as on others, has never been more important. […] Slava Ukraini!

Left to right in Toronto, 2015: Paul Grod (UCC president), Ted Opitz (Conservative MP), Andriy Parubiy, Chris Alexander, and Markian Shwec (UCC-Toronto)

Before moving on, let’s take a moment to digest Alexander’s comments about the “perversions of history.” It almost goes without saying that according to him, “Hitler was an ally of Stalin, Putin’s idol,” and “Putin has resurrected this red-brown alliance.” This politician and former diplomat helped to initiate the project to establish an extremely problematic “Victims of Communism” monument in Ottawa.

As David Pugliese recently reported, “The Department of Canadian Heritage is being told that more than half of the 550 names on the Memorial to the Victims of Communism should be removed because of potential links to the Nazis or questions about affiliations with fascist groups, according to government records.”

His numerous stories about this controversial project are another reason for Alexander to have an axe to grind with the award-winning journalist. Pugliese, who specializes in writing about military issues, apparently also embarrassed Alexander back when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Defence.

In the spring of 2022, Chris Alexander told his ~130,000 Twitter followers that Russia is “committing the same war crimes as Nazi invaders.” A couple months later, he said, “There is no substantive difference between the threat to world peace represented by revanchist Nazi Germany in 1939 & that of genocidal, irredentist & fascist Russia in 2022.” Last year, Alexander shared an article about the “Jewish Question” from the U.S. Holocaust Museum, just to compare “Hitler’s determination to ‘remove the Jews’” with “Putin’s obsession with ‘removing Ukraine.’”

Even before Putin launched his so-called “special military operation,” Alexander said that “Germans should understand” they don’t deserve all the blame for “the horrors of the Second World War,” which the Kremlin started. “Germany has overcome its Nazi past. It now needs to face down, with equal vigour, Russia’s dark Stalinist legacy.”

I actually agree with him that Germans should understand that they do not deserve all of the blame for the horrors of the Second World War. Certainly, the Imperial bourgeoisie deserves a great deal of blame for starting it by invading Manchuria in 1931, and anticommunists from the Anglosphere, Austria, the Balkans, the Baltics, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iberia, Italy, Poland, Romania, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Turkey, and elsewhere deserve blame for only aggravating the violence, but contemporary anticommunists do not want to talk about any of that, do they?

Likewise, modern Germany is most certainly not a model for the Russian Federation if it seeks to face down its “dark Stalinist legacy” (don’t laugh!). Between the surviving architecture, the abundance of neofascists, and the mistreatment of anticolonial Jews, only Italy or Japan would be a worse model.

Whatever you may think about the Russian Federation, hopefully we can at least come to an agreement that it is not the greatest threat to world peace today.

And Chris Alexander is undoubtedly the worst historian in Canada:

In the coming months, before Ukraine’s unsuccessful counter-offensive, Chris Alexander insisted, “The war will only end with fascist Russia’s defeat, as the Second World War ended with Nazi Germany’s defeat.”