For NATO’s defeat and Russia’s military defense! No political support for Putin!
Icaro Kaleb, December 2022
Ten months into the conflict in Ukraine, an update and adjustment of Revolutionary Regroupment’s position is long overdue. As you can see in last February’s text (https://rr4i.noblogs.org/2002/03/22/russias-war-in-ukraine-and-natos-imperialist-siege/), we analyzed the war as the result of a provocation by NATO, with its constant advance to the East in recent decades, gaining member countries and increasing the number of bases in a real encirclement of Russia and China. We denounced the US imperialist power and the military alliance under its leadership as the main culprits in the conflict. We established our characterization that Russia, despite its military power inherited from the USSR, is, in the international context, a dependent country of the imperialist chain, which must be defended against retaliation, and the sanctions against it, fought. We did not fail to point out that the anti-communist and reactionary character belonged not only to the Putin government, which has sympathies with the “ultra-right” and elements clearly hostile to the proletariat, but also to the pro-imperialist puppet and “friend of the Fascists” Volodymyr Zelensky, portrayed as a “hero” and “democrat” by the Western media. We also pointed out that Russia, “despite its expansionist appetites, is largely defensively motivated in the current conflict”.
On the specific issues of the war, the declared position was marked by a certain ambiguity, maintaining the strategic defense of workers’ independence and action for the resolution of the conflict and defeat of NATO. The main reason for this was that we considered the possibility of a rapid Russian victory and partial or total seizure of Ukrainian territory, and not just the separatist republics. For this reason, we spoke “against a Russian occupation of Ukraine” as a potential catalyst for reactionary nationalist prejudices. We were neither neutral nor did we equate the two sides in dispute. In March, a month after the start of the war, we said that “a victory for the Ukrainian government and army, which is receiving heavy imperialist support… will be the most reactionary scenario”, because “it will mean a victory for NATO”. Despite this, we did not take a clear side in defense of Russia in the war. Also, NATO’s support was just beginning; since then, it has multiplied out of control.
In this text, we intend to update our analysis of the decisive events of the last eight months, as well as to consolidate the position of defending the Russian victory in the war, without endorsing any of the reactionary crimes of the Putin government, either internally or on the part of the troops in action in Ukraine. We argue that the conflict today is unquestionably a confrontation between NATO and Russian forces, and that revolutionary Marxists should not be neutral, even if this is not happening inside Russia, but in a neighboring country. Russia’s victory, while not resolving the question of the imperialist presence in Eastern Europe, would represent a major blow to the US and its allies’ determination to close in on Russia and other oppressed nations. But it is only the international proletariat, led by a revolutionary party, in Russia, Ukraine and the intervening powers, that can decisively resolve the question of the wars caused by capitalist competition and the shadow of destruction that this system carries with it.
NATO’s military support, imperialist strategy and the Ukrainian people
Before the beginning of the conflict, the Ukrainian military budget in previous years was in the order of 5.9 billion dollars. [1] Since February 24, 2022, a total of 28 NATO countries and allies have provided military aid to Ukraine, not counting financial aid. [2] In October, the value of direct military support alone was already estimated at around 36 billion dollars, i.e. almost six times the Ukrainian military budget, with a further 50 billion in financial support, also to be used for the continuation of the war effort, so these figures are underestimated. Most of this support has come from the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom. Other smaller but not insignificant contributors were Germany, Canada and Poland. [3] Just in the last few days, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who paid a “surprise visit” to Zelensky, announced another $300 million in war support [4]; and the US has just reported a new transfer of air defense missile launch technology (HIMARS), worth an estimated $1.8 billion, while Zelensky was appearing for a visit to Joe Biden [5].
Among the types of weapons supplied directly are ammunition, conventional weapons, anti-aircraft and anti-tank batteries, armored vehicles, helicopters, attack and reconnaissance drones. [6] In addition, Ukrainian civilians have been openly trained in combat camps by the British Army [7]. In November, the Pentagon confirmed that there were effective US troops on Ukrainian territory, supporting the war against Russia [8]. This involves not just “security inspections”, as the Pentagon representative said, but a series of underground actions. In face of all this, it is impossible to consider the ongoing war a conflict merely between Ukraine and Russia. The global scenario has always been paramount for an effective understanding, at least for all those who don’t believe that the primary motivation for the war is the “madness” or “ambition for power” of the head of the Kremlin.
The “Ukrainian side” in the war is therefore, concretely and materially, the side of NATO, of the leading countries of the dominant imperialist bloc on the global capitalist stage, which are trying to impose their economic and geopolitical interests on the four corners of the planet, using wars, coups, sanctions and sieges to do so. The Ukrainian army, which wouldn’t even still be standing without such support, can best be characterized at the present time as a “proxy troop” in the imperialist effort to encircle and subjugate Russia and strengthen its presence in Eastern Europe. It can be argued, of course, that the full arsenal of the US, EU and NATO weapons is not deployed. This is because this imperialist bloc has no interest in a direct confrontation with Russia at this time, which would have unpredictable consequences. But the tactics used are entirely in the manual of “indirect wars” that have been used on many recent occasions, such as in Libya [9] and Syria [10], as opposed to the direct occupation carried out in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq. The imperialist strategy has been one of creating friction, seeking to isolate Russia and provoke the fall of the Putin regime, on which they would like to impose a more subservient status. The continuation of the war, the growing number of losses in the Russian army, the economic siege due to boycotts and sanctions are all part of the imperialist arc of action.
To achieve this goal, the greatest sacrifice is the Ukrainian people themselves. Contrary to Putin’s reactionary nationalist reasoning, the Ukrainian people do exist and were not an “invention of Lenin and the Bolsheviks”. [11] But they have been used as cannon fodder, with tens of thousands of civilians killed and wounded, an offering of human flesh made by Volodymyr Zelensky to the NATO god, for the sake of their interests in the siege of Russia. That’s why we’re reinforcing the need for civilians who are part of the Ukrainian army, who are workers, to organize themselves and turn their guns on their generals, and to overthrow Zelensky and bring about a ceasefire and peace, based on the exclusion of NATO from the territory of Ukraine forever, without annexations or occupation of Ukrainian territories by Russia. We know how difficult it is to do this in a country where left-wing parties, even the most moderate ones, are outlawed, while fascist groups have a free hand. [12] This is the quickest way to peace and an end to the war that doesn’t involve strengthening NATO, which would cause new wars in a matter of a few years. The actions of workers in other countries to sabotage the imperialist war effort are exemplary in this sense, such as that carried out by Greek railway workers in April 2022. [13]
The ups and downs on the front, the impact of sanctions and the position of workers in Russia
The Russian assault, supported by Belarus, took place on four fronts, with different degrees of mobilization and success. A Northern front, towards the capital Kyiv; a Northeastern front, targeting Kharkiv; the Southern front, with troops departing from Crimea, controlled by Russia since 2014; and the Southeastern front, towards the breakaway republics of Lugansk and Donetsk. The Northern front, which had intended to take the capital, made no progress, and there was a Russian retreat as early as April. Between April and May, Russia made its greatest advances, being able to create a “corridor” along the Russian-Ukrainian border, which unified the North-eastern, South-eastern and Southern fronts, virtually dominating the entire territory of the Lugansk and Donetsk provinces. Russia began a process of annexing these territories, some of which are not part of those demanding to join the Russian Federation, and began recruiting 300,000 reservists to send to these areas. In September, a Ukrainian/NATO counter-offensive retook the part of Kharkiv province that Russia had seized, in the North-east. Between October and November, they drove Russia back to the East bank of the Dnipro River, on the Southern front. [14] Putin’s most recent speeches show signs of an internal crisis, with talk of “traitors and saboteurs” and recognition of difficulties on the front. [15]
The sanctions against Russia and Belarus, despite having an impact on the countries’ foreign trade, their banking system and especially on the poorest, due to food inflation, have fallen far short of what the imperialists wanted. Among the sanctions are restrictions on the banking transactions of Russian citizens and companies abroad and a ban on the participation of Russian and Belarusian companies in EU markets. The purchase of maritime and radio communication technology from Russia, as well as its access to crypto-assets, has been limited. Similarly, the United States has banned the import of Russian oil and frozen the assets of the Russian central bank. In an unprecedented move, private companies have also responded to the invasion by carrying out own-initiative sanctions against Russia [16].
Estimates are that by 2022, Russia’s GDP will fall by 8.5%. Despite this, Putin’s popularity has shown no signs of falling so far, even though there is growing concern in the country about the prolonging of the conflict. The Russian Federation still has sufficient monetary and food reserves to keep it afloat in the face of the sanctions imposed. China, Kazakhstan and Turkey have maintained normal trade relations and served as channels for trade between Russia and the rest of the world, so only direct exports have been impacted, as well as flights in and out of the country. Russian oil and gas imports have been completely sanctioned only by the US, but European companies in this field continue to operate in Russia, even though there have been reductions, while exports to China and India have increased. Today, for the first time in history, China buys more oil from Russia than from the Middle East. [17] The map of the countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia clearly shows the dominant triad of the imperialist chain (the US, the European Union and Japan) and their most direct areas of influence.
We reaffirm our opposition to all imperialist sanctions against Russia. Workers in the countries that apply them must hold demonstrations, stoppages and direct actions to bring them down as soon as possible. This is part of what the international proletariat can do in opposition to the butcherly expansion of the war drums of NATO and the US, which also have their eyes on Venezuela, Iran, and the bureaucratized workers’ states of Cuba, China and North Korea, among other territories that are even partially opposed to imperialist dictates. This should not mean any political support for the bourgeois or bureaucratic rulers of these nations, some of whom don’t even have a supposedly “progressive” veneer, such as Putin himself.
The workers of Russia are in an exceptional historical situation: the defensive war waged by the Russian Federation takes place outside its borders. This gives the workers’ movement, despite the difficulties caused by the sanctions, much greater scope to organize, without their immediate task being to defeat a foreign invasion. The death toll of Russian soldiers has already reached almost 80,000, according to some unofficial estimates. While the workers’ movement should not adopt actions to sabotage the Russian war effort at the present time, it must tirelessly build an opposition to the Putin government, both inside and outside the army, which should in no way be subjected politically to its reactionary nationalism (which closely resembles Tzarist discourse). Workers must actively denounce and fight the tactical errors, the chauvinist Grand-Russian prejudice and the crimes against the working people, as well as prevent the impact of the sanctions from falling on the poorest, making the capitalists pay. At the same time, the parties of the working class and militant trade unions must delimit themselves and not have the slightest unity of action, at this time, with the pro-Western liberal sectors, who want to weaken the Putin regime for their own pro-imperialist interests. The position of the working class has nothing to do with the liberal-pacifist position that is the fifth wheel on the NATO wagon.
Our perspective must be one of the international proletariat
Russia is now the key to situating ourselves in global class struggle. Some on the left, who have already lost any anti-imperialist perspective, support the “Ukrainian resistance”, as if an army led and armed by NATO could represent some “liberating” principle, as is the case with the PSTU [18]. A Ukrainian victory in this war will make it another pawn in service of the US and its allies, completely subservient. Also, there will be no “Marshall plan” to rebuild the country. Others, despite being on the right side of the war, abandon the proletarian perspective, either openly or in a masked way, when they praise Putin or shield his government from criticism. They support Russia not because they understand that the proletariat must be anti-imperialist, but because they have exchanged Marxism for the “geopolitics of anti-Americanism”, where they support all governments that critivize the US rule. While they get it right at the most superficial and immediate level of the conflict, they have abandoned the strategic perspective, which requires the recognition of irreconcilable class interests, ultimately between all bourgeois governments and the working class. To fulfill this, the reactionary character of Putin’s regime, which is a declared enemy of communism, cannot be minimized.
Finally, a wide range of organizations that claim to be revolutionary abstractly place themselves “against the war”, without defining how [19], generally equating Russia as an “imperialist power”, as is the case with the PCR/UP [20]. In our other writings, we have defined the four ways in which the war can come to an end: victory for Ukraine/NATO, stagnation (which can only be a temporary truce), victory for Russia (which means forcing Ukraine out of the NATO sphere of influence) and an internationalist proletarian revolution in the region. We defend Russia’s military victory at this time as a concrete way of avoiding a “greater evil”, which is NATO’s victory. However, our perspective is that of the proletarian revolution in Europe and Russia, the only one that can truly end the threats of war and begin to demolish the military alliance of the imperialist powers.
The method of Marxism takes into account the uneven economic development, relations of domination and dependence between states, but also the class struggle, in which all the economic and social reality is built up on. The analysis of Marxism is not simply the defense of “national sovereignty”, at the level of states, which forgets the class character of the governments of dependent countries; nor does it see class conflicts only in the internal context, as an isolated factor, which loses sight of the imperialist web and the existence of oppressed countries and oppressors ones. In all cases, it is the international interest of the proletariat that must be taken into account, with its historical specificities that take shape within each state. This is the only way to avoid mistakes of both types and provide a guide to the victory for the socialist revolution.
NOTES
[1] See https://tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/military-expenditure
[2] See https://www.statista.com/chart/27278/military-aid-to-ukraine-by-country/
[3] See https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/12/9/infographic-who-provides-the-most-aid-to-ukraine
[4] See https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/12/19/uk-to-announce-304m-in-new-military-aid-for-ukraine
[7] See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgQ66xVS2Ac
[8] See
[9] For Revolutionary Regroupment’s statement at the time of the civil war and imperialist intervention in Libya:
https://rr4i.noblogs.org/2011/09/02/libya-a-defeat-for-workers-and-victory-for-the-imperialists/
[10] On Syria, see this article by Revolutionary Regroupment: https://rr4i.noblogs.org/2016/01/19/syrian-civil-war-the-islamic-state-and-the-battle-of-kobani/
[11] See:
[14] The content of this paragraph was based on the summary made by the English Wikipedia page on the conflict. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War
[16] See https://thehaguepeace.org/site/the-effect-of-sanctions-on-human-rights/
[17] See https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-61890519
[18] An example of this can be found in the position defended by the PSTU: https://www.pstu.org.br/sobre-a-ofensiva-ucraniana-em-kharkiv-e-as-condicoes-para-a-derrota-militar-de-putin/
[19] This is the case with the PCB (Brazilian Communist Party), whose position on the war in Ukraine is unclear, although it correctly denounces NATO as the main culprit. See: https://pcb.org.br/portal2/28478. However, they have already published translations of texts from other sources, praising the head of the Kremlin, of whom they say little in their own statements. See: https://pcb.org.br/portal2/8371 On the other hand, they have also translated the text of the Russian CP which characterizes Russia as imperialist: https://pcb.org.br/portal2/28496. Many seasons in a dish that is hard to swallow.
[20] This is the case of the Stalinist PCR (Revolutionary Communist Party), which animates the “Unidade Popular”. The PCR also claims that the Russian government is “fascist” and compares the action in Ukraine to the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. See, for example: https://pcrbrasil.org/paises-imperialistas-e-burguesia-sao-os-responsaveis-por-guerras-crises-economicas-e-fome-no-mundo/