‘Ruling class uses war, and the working class pay’
Clare Wilkins, Nottingham Socialist Party
400 people, including many Ukrainians, protested in Nottingham against Putin’s invasion. The Socialist Party leaflet was snapped up and we ran out.
We were the only people stressing working-class unity to stop the war. Unfortunately, others on the left unconditionally supported the Ukrainian regime, and this fed into a nationalist atmosphere at the rally.
But a young Ukrainian woman said: “We are a peaceful country of Ukrainians, Russians and others living together in peace”. An Estonian woman said that there had been huge demonstrations in Lithuania.
John, a student at Nottingham Trent University, said: “Rulers do nothing to improve the lives of the working class in their countries, and want a distraction for the masses from what is going on at home. They use war, which the working class pays for with their lives and living standards. [Governments in] the US, Britain and others were calling out Putin as the aggressor, as if they have never been aggressors themselves.”
