More than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it was American President Donald Trump that CPM politburo member and interim coordinator Prakash Karat singled out for attack during his inaugural address at the CPM State Conference that began in Kollam on Thursday, March 6. Yet, Karat seemed pleased with Trump on one count: His handling of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. 

It looked like Karat will never run out of words to malign Trump. He called Trump a "19th-century imperialist who wanted to annex more and more territories". He termed the US president's attempts to lay claim on Greenland, Panama Canal and Canada and his outrageous demand to hand over Gaza Strip to America as "outlandish" and "crude".

He was also appalled by Trump's invitation to the "oppressed whites" in South Africa to seek refuge in America. He reprimanded Modi for supporting Israel, just like Trump, and for exporting arms to a country that is "waging a genocidal war in Palestine". He said India would get alienated from the global south, the developing economies, if Modi kept giving Trump's plans the thumbs up. 

Still, the man who felt so outraged by Trump's actions was resoundingly silent about the US president's bullying of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Though more than 80 per cent of those killed in the Russia-Ukraine war are Ukrainians, nearly as much as in Palestine, Karat did not see it fit to make even a small mention of their suffering. Ukraine's trauma has to be ignored as it was inflicted by Russia, one of the two big communist countries that justifies the existence of the CPM. 

Forget feeling the pain, it looked like Karat derived some ideological pleasure out of Trump's insult of Zelensky. Trump's seeming support of Russia would have perhaps pleased the top CPM apparatchik. Trump has radically changed equations since January, when the CPM political resolution was adopted in Kolkata. The resolution said: "The US imperialism is involved in the two major conflicts taking place in the world since the 23rd Congress. It is actively supporting Israel in its aggression against Gaza, which has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, and it is lethally arming and supporting Ukraine in the war with Russia."

Now, to the CPM's delight, Trump has paused US military aid to Ukraine, and has at least temporarily broken off his partnership with European powers in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. A bit of that glee spilled over into his inaugural address. "Earlier, under President Biden, using the Ukraine war against Russia, the entire European capital powers were united under the leadership of the United States. The G-7, all the seven powerful capitalist countries, were completely united, both against Russia and China. But now Trump is clearly telling Europe that you are subordinate to us. You have to either listen to us or go your own way," Karat said.

It sounded as if Karat was cheering Trump along in his attempt to secure Ukraine's minerals for American companies.