Russia-Ukrainian Conflict: 'Give me liberty or give me death'
Opinion
Rescuers work at Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital, which was damaged during a Russian missile strike, in Kyiv, Ukraine in July, 2024. What we are witnessing in Ukraine is not only one of Russia’s “final pushes”, but the realisation of Vladimir Lenin’s prophecy.
Image: Gleb Garanich/Reuters
HISTORY, as CV Wedgwood observed, is written backwards but lived forwards. In the fog of war, the path ahead is obscured by ambiguity and risk. Kierkegaard put it well: “We can only understand life backwards, but life must be lived forwards.”
This lens helps make sense of the Russia-Ukraine war — not as a sudden crisis, but as the unfolding of long-standing ideological and geopolitical currents.
In 1921, Lenin presciently wrote that Western capitalists would willingly supply the Soviet Union with the technology and credit it needed to eventually overthrow them. “They will work hard,” he said, “in order to prepare their own suicide.” This vision was not mere rhetoric. OC Boileau argued in 1976 that Soviet leaders saw themselves not just as national rulers, but as stewards of a revolutionary mission — the inevitable triumph of communism over the West.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, after fleeing to America, echoed this warning in his 1978 Harvard speech: “The West is on the verge of a collapse created by its own hands.” He observed a weakening of Western resolve and warned that the Soviet economy was so entrenched in militarisation that even if its leaders wanted peace, they could no longer stop the machine. “The degeneration of America is underway,” he said, “and off there in the wings, the military power is being prepared to apply the final push.”
What we are witnessing in Ukraine is not only one of Russia’s “final pushes”, but the realisation of Vladimir Lenin’s prophecy.
Jim Courter, in *Step by Step: The Soviet Bloc’s Global Challenge to Democracy*, reminds us that a larger story underpins the current crisis — one of territorial expansion and the consolidation of political, economic, and military power. Guided by proletarian internationalism, the Soviet bloc has long aimed at the destruction of the “Free World” — the great democracies.
Courter does not claim the Soviets want war, but insists it would be naive to assume they desire peace. The evidence is clear: the Soviet Union ceaselessly prepared for war, and those designs continue wherever opportunity allows.
When Americans spent 40% of their defence budget on personnel, the Soviets invested in weapons. As Robert McFarlane noted, the USSR produced twice as many fighter aircraft as the US and NATO combined, four times as many helicopters, and 50 times as many bombers. The armoured battalions now rolling into Ukraine are not new, they are the legacy of a system that never stopped building.
In his Crimean annexation speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Crimea is saturated with shared history and pride, that St Vladimir’s baptism in Chersonese laid the spiritual foundation for a common civilisation linking Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. “We are not just close neighbours,” he said, “we are actually the same nation. Kyiv is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus is our common origin; we cannot live without each other.”
This deep historical bond explains Russia’s sensitivity to Ukraine and its inevitable involvement.
Samuel Charap and Keith Darden cite Samuel Huntington’s *Clash of Civilisations*, which argues that nations need enemies for self-definition. While discredited, Huntington’s thesis gains credibility in Ukraine. After more than 30 years of the West treating Russia as an adversary, Moscow may have truly become one.
Putin’s private remark to George W Bush — questioning whether Ukraine was a real country — reveals a dismissive attitude. Yet, as Charap and Darden note, until the collapse of the EU-brokered settlement on February 21, 2014, Russia’s role did not warrant labels like “aggressive” or “expansionist”. Until then, blaming Russia for Ukraine’s crisis was unjust.
The Russia-Ukraine war marks the second major confrontation with NATO. In 2008, Russia occupied Georgia, a NATO aspirant, and recognised breakaway regions. In 2013, it repeated the pattern with Ukraine, annexing Crimea and backing separatists. The West rightly condemned these actions.
Yet, as Safak Oguz argues, NATO’s weak response to the 2008 Georgia war failed to deter future aggression. Its posture lacked the strength to prevent Russia from challenging the West again.
The UN’s inability to mediate was summed up by Boutros Boutros-Ghali: “The whole philosophy is to avoid military force. If we have used force, we have failed.” When asked how to respond to a voracious fighting force, he replied: “Our philosophy is based on talk — negotiate — and then talk again.” To move to force, he said, is “like someone doing therapy who suddenly decides to do brain surgery”. This aversion renders the UN — and similar bodies — “toothless dogs”, a flaw mirrored in the OAU’s non-interference clause that enabled coups across Africa.
Lee H Hamilton noted six shifts after the Cold War: the end of the communist challenge, Soviet instability, fragile new democracies, the rise of Western Europe and Japan, Middle East instability, and emerging transnational threats. The Warsaw Pact dissolved in 1991, ending the threat of Soviet invasion. Yet thousands of nuclear weapons still pointed west. The danger faded — but did not vanish.
Many believe negotiations will end the war. But history cautions against blind trust. Fred Ikle once said, “Negotiating with the Russians is tough. They tend to press for higher numbers.” Boutros-Ghali’s mantra — “talk, negotiate, talk again” — offers little hope. The prospect of peace through such diplomacy is bleak.
Rather than suffer under authoritarianism, Ukrainians echo Patrick Henry: “Give me liberty or give me death.” The wealth of the modern world is created in free nations. The Soviets come to the West for food, not because they lack resources, but because their leaders choose arms over agriculture. One gets the impression that Soviet, and now Russian, leaders would rather their people starve than risk the “contamination” of freedom.
Plato said: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Rosenberg, a poet who died at 28 on the Western Front, mourned a world where: “Red fangs have torn His face. God’s blood is shed.” He longed for the world to regain its “pristine bloom”. For those in Ukraine, Palestine, and Syria, every day is a battle. Only death brings peace.
If Ukrainian freedom is to survive, negotiations must not compromise liberty. As Jesse Helms argued, only the free world has the creativity to adapt. Each free citizen holds a power no oppressive state can match — the power to shape their own life. True security lies not in control, but in freedom.
As JFK said: “We must never negotiate out of fear, but we must never fear to negotiate.” Weinberger warned that concession after concession leads to empty agreements. Reinhold Niebuhr cautioned that democratic failure often comes from idealists facing ruthless realities with too many illusions.
The real conflict is not between Russia and Ukraine, but between Russia and the United States. What we see is either the resurgence or continuation of the Cold War. There was no official end — only an assumption, fueled by Reagan’s 1987 meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev. When asked how long the conflict would last, Reagan said: “Oh, that’s a thing of the past. They no longer believe in one-world Marxian domination.” But do they?
Could nations like Ukraine, Georgia, and Hungary have turned to NATO not just for security, but for survival? Russia feeds its military, not its people. Dmitry Medvedev once told Crimeans: “There is no money, but you be strong.” Hunger-fueled revolutions in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Today, Russians queue for bread while trains haul armoured battalions to Ukraine.
As a song says: “There are more questions than answers.” But this is clear: NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander stated, “What is happening in eastern Ukraine is a military operation… carried out at the direction of Russia.”
And so we return to Lenin’s warning: “They will supply us with the materials and technology which we need for our future victorious attacks upon our suppliers. In other words, they will work hard in order to prepare their own suicide.”
Let Ukraine decide: bow to pressure, or rise with Henry’s cry? “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
* Dr Vusi Shongwe works in the Department of Sport, Arts, and Culture in KwaZulu-Natal and writes in his personal capacity.
** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, IOL, or Independent Media.