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May 2022

Critical balance sheet of the 2011 Indignados movement in Spain

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Ten years on, what lessons can we draw from the Indignados movement? Understanding past struggles with a critical analysis, while looking to the future, is a source of strength and encouragement for the proletariat in a historical situation that is deteriorating over time at all levels: pandemic, economic crisis, barbaric wars, environmental destruction, moral collapse...

The strength of the proletariat lies in its ability to learn from a struggle of over three centuries of historical experience. Due to this ability, it can develop its class consciousness in order to fight for the liberation of humanity from the yoke of capitalism.

The proletariat needs constantly to look back at its past struggles, not to fall into nostalgia, on the contrary, but to relentlessly examine its weaknesses, its limits, its mistakes, its weak points, in order to extract a treasure trove of lessons that will serve it in its revolutionary struggle.

Looking back at the 2011 Indignados movement is necessary to reaffirm its proletarian nature but also to understand its enormous limits and weaknesses. Only in this way can we draw on its lessons for the period ahead.

The entry into struggle of the new generations of the working class

Any proletarian movement must be analysed in its historical and global context. The May 15th movement occurred in 2011 within a cycle of struggles that developed over the period 2003-2011.

In 1989-91, the collapse of the USSR and its satellite regimes allowed the global bourgeoisie to launch a damning anti-communist campaign that relentlessly hammered home these three slogans: “End of communism”, “Bankruptcy of Marxism” and “Political disappearance of the working class”. This succeeded in causing a marked withdrawal in workers’ combativity and consciousness[1].

Since then, the majority of workers no longer recognise themselves as such. Rather they see themselves, for some, as a more fortunate minority, the “middle class”, and for others as “those at the bottom”, “the precarious”, “the losers in life”, etc. Faced with the notion of class, scientific, unifying, universal and with a perspective of the future, the bourgeoisie propagates to its great joy the reactionary, dividing vision of “social categories” through its army of servants (parties, unions, ideologues, “influencers”) who constantly shout from the rooftops - from the Internet to the universities, through parliament and the media - that the working class does not exist, that it is an “outdated” concept and that there are only “citizens” of the “national community”.

The retreat in class struggle was also expressed through the return in force of democratic, trade unionist, humanist and reformist ideologies which proclaim the “end of history”. There is no other world possible than capitalism and the best we can do is to “improve” it so that everyone can find their “place” within it.

Any attempt to change capitalism would lead to much worse situations, borne out by what had happened in the USSR or what we see in North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, etc. This supposedly demonstrates that the historical dilemma formulated by Engels at the end of the 19th century, Communism or Barbarism, is false because “Communism is also barbarism”.

Despite this enormous burden, 2003 saw a certain revival of workers’ struggles. There were significant strikes such as the New York underground strike (2005), the Vigo strike in Spain (2006), the strikes in northern Egypt (2007), the protests of young workers in Greece (2008). But the two most important movements were the struggle against the CPE[2] in France (2006) and the Indignados movement in Spain (2011)[3].

“These two massive movements of proletarian youth spontaneously rediscovered the methods of struggle of the working class, including the culture of debate in massive general assemblies open to all.

These movements were also characterised by solidarity between generations (whereas the student movement of the late 1960s, very strongly marked by the weight of the petty bourgeoisie, had often seen themselves as being in opposition to the generations which had been mobilised for war) .If, in the movement against the CPE, the vast majority of students fighting against the prospect of unemployment and precariousness, had recognised themselves as part of the working class, the Indignados in Spain (although their movement had spread internationally through social networks) did not have a clear awareness of belonging to the exploited class.

While the massive movement against the CPE was a proletarian response to an economic attack (which forced the bourgeoisie to retreat by withdrawing the CPE), the Indignados movement was essentially marked by a global reflection on the bankruptcy of capitalism and the need for another society”[4]

Despite these contributions, these movements did not succeed in overcoming the retreat of consciousness and combativity of 1989 and were very much marked not only by its effects, but also by the process of social and ideological decomposition that has been evident in capitalism since the 1980s[5].

Their most important limitations were that they failed to mobilise the whole working class and occurred in a limited number of countries. They were limited to the new generation of workers. “Workers in the major industrial centres remained passive and their struggles sporadic (fear of unemployment being a central element of such inhibition). There was no unified and massive mobilisation of the working class, but only of a part of it, the youngest”[6].

The young workers went on strike (many of them were still students), most of them affected by precariousness, unemployment, totally individualised and isolated work, linked to small companies, most of them not having a head office. In such conditions, to the asphyxiating weight of the historical backwardness explained above, was added inexperience, the total absence of a previous collective life, and terrible social dispersion.

The loss of class identity

The struggle of the Indignados was faced with a wall that it could not overcome: the loss of class identity that has persisted since 1989.

This loss of identity meant that the vast majority of participants in the movement did not recognise themselves as part of the working class.

Many were still students or in higher education[7]. Those who were still studying worked sporadically to pay for their studies and many of those in precarious, low-paid jobs thought that this was a transitory situation, hoping to get a job in line with their level of education. In short, many participants believed that their membership of the working class was circumstantial, a kind of purgatory before finally arriving in the ‘paradise’ of the ‘middle class’.

Another factor that prevented them from identifying themselves as working class was that they constantly changed companies or jobs, with the majority working in small companies or subcontractors operating in factories or distribution, trade or service centres[8].

Many of them work alone, barely seeing their colleagues, locked away at home, working online or participating in the so-called “uberisation” of work

“By using an internet platform to find a job, Uberisation disguises the sale of labour power to a boss as a form of "individual enterprise", while reinforcing the impoverishment and precariousness of these "entrepreneurs". The ‘Uberisation’ of individual work is a key factor in enforcing atomisation, and increasing the difficulty of going on strike, because the self-exploitation of these workers considerably hinders their ability to fight collectively and develop solidarity against capitalist exploitation”. (op cit note 4)

Although they expressed sympathy for the working class, the majority did not feel that they belonged to it. They saw themselves as a sum of atomised individuals, frustrated and outraged by an increasingly distressing situation of misery, instability and lack of a future.

The context of unemployment accompanies the young working-class generations like an anguished shadow. They live trapped in a spiral of precarious jobs that alternate with more-or-less prolonged phases of unemployment, many of them falling into a situation of long-term unemployment. This has the effect of what we announced 30 years ago in our Theses on Decomposition:

“Clearly, one factor that aggravates this situation is the fact that a large proportion of young working class generations are subjected to the full weight of unemployment even before they have had the opportunity to experience in the workplace, in the company of comrades in work and struggle, the collective life of the working class. In fact, although unemployment (which is a direct result of the economic crisis) is not in itself an expression of decomposition, its effects make it an important element of this decomposition. While in general terms it may help to reveal capitalism’s inability to secure a future for the workers, it is nonetheless today a powerful factor in the ‘lumpenisation’ of certain sectors of the class, especially of young workers, which therefore weakens the class’ present and future political capacities” (op cit, note 5)

THEY ARE PART OF THE WORKING CLASS but subjectively they do not recognise themselves in it. This meant that the 2011 movement did not cut the umbilical cord of the deceptive “national community”[9]. For example, the slogan “‘we are the 99%, they are the 1%’, so popular in the Occupy movement in the US, does not express a vision of society divided into classes but rather the typically democratic vision so often repeated by leftism, of the ‘people’, the ‘grassroots citizens’ versus the 1% of ‘plutocrats’ and ‘oligarchs’ who ‘betray’ the nation. In this view, classes do not exist but rather a sum of individuals divided between a majority of ‘losers’ and an elite of ‘winners’. Thus, the participants in the movement had enormous difficulty in understanding that ‘society is divided into classes, a capitalist class that owns everything and produces nothing and an exploited class, the proletariat, that produces everything and owns less and less. The engine of social evolution is not the democratic game of the decision of a majority of 'citizens' (this game is rather the mask that covers and legitimises the dictatorship of the ruling class) but the class struggle’.” (see note 2).

The illusion of democratic reform.

Deprived of the strength and perspective that comes from recognising themselves as members of a historical class that represents the only future for humanity, the young Indignados were terribly vulnerable to the illusion of a “renewal of the democratic game”.

All over the world, the democratic state is a decoy that covers the dictatorship of capital. However, given the dominance of the ideology that “communism has failed” or “communism is the nightmare we see in Cuba, Venezuela or North Korea”, the participants in the 15 May movement clung to the chimera of “renewing democracy” following that old mystification so often repeated by politicians: “democracy is the lesser evil of all regimes”.

With this slogan, they want to enrol us in the “struggle for a real democracy”. So the bourgeois group that accompanied and controlled the movement in Spain was called Democracia Real Ya (Real Democracy Now, DRY)[10]. They tell us “OK, democracy is not perfect, it carries the heavy burden of politicians, of corruption, of complacency towards the financial and corporate powers”, therefore the question is not to fight for utopias that lead to the sinister barbarism of North Korea, Cuba or Venezuela but rather to “purify democracy” to create a “democracy at the service of all”.

This is the real reactionary utopia, because democracy is what it is and it cannot be “reformed” or “improved”. New constitutions, referendums, the end of the two-party system, participatory democracy, etc. are the patches that change absolutely nothing and whose sole purpose is to hand us over, tied hand and foot, to the dictatorship of capital in its democratic guise.

The most widespread slogan in the Assemblies of 15 May was “They call it democracy, but it's not”. This was a trap, a very dangerous mystification that undermined the movement from within and prevented it from spreading. The bourgeois states are that: democracy. They call it democracy and IT IS democracy, in other words, the democratic disguise of the totalitarian state of capitalist decadence.

As argued in the “Theses on Bourgeois Democracy and Proletarian Dictatorship”, adopted by the 1st Congress of the Communist International in 1919, there is not and never will be a democracy that is good, pure, participatory, humane, at the “service of all”: “the most democratic of bourgeois republics cannot be anything other than a machine for oppressing the working class, putting the mass of workers at the mercy of the bourgeoisie and a handful of capitalists”[11].

We do not live in a society of “free and equal citizens”, we live in a society DIVIDED INTO CLASSES. And therefore, the state is not a neutral organ at the service of the citizens but represents the DICTATORSHIP of the ruling class, of capital, which orients society not towards the satisfaction of the needs of the “citizens” but towards the ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL, the profit of the companies and the national interest.

Capital dominates society in the name of the interest of the Nation, which would be a supposed “community of free and equal citizens”; and it barricades itself in the State which, in order to keep the appearance of “representing the majority”, organises a ritual of elections, rights, consultations, oppositions, “balances of power”, “alternation”, etc.

A still-timid criticism of the democratic trap emerges in small minorities within the assemblies. There were those who “completed” the cant of “they call it democracy, but it's not” with another instruction “it's a dictatorship but you can't see it”. There was a beginning of awareness here. They call it democracy BUT it's a dictatorship, the dictatorship of capital.

The dictatorship which, instead of a single party or a military autocracy, has a constellation of parties and unions which express themselves differently but all tend towards the same goal: the defence of national capital. The dictatorship that does not have a great and irremovable dictator but changes dictator every 4 years through the game of elections, a game that the state organises and controls to ensure that the result is always the majority option for the defence of national capital[12].

The dictatorship which, instead of the threats and blatant despotism of authoritarian regimes, hides virtuously and hypocritically behind fine words about solidarity, the interest of all, the will of the majority, etc.

The dictatorship which, instead of openly stealing for the benefit of the minority, takes the disguise of “social justice”, of “taking care of the poorest”, of “nobody is left behind”, and other nonsense.

The dictatorship that instead of shamelessly repressing or denying any kind of right or organisation, locks us into “rights” that deprive us of everything and into “organisations” that divide and disorganise us as a class.

This beginning of understanding (“it's a dictatorship but you can't see it”) was very much in the minority: what dominated the assemblies was the illusion of a “democratic renewal”[13].

Ten years later, what does the “democratic renewal” that many young people in the assemblies were hoping for consist of? Well, we can see it. The two big parties (PP and PSOE) are now accompanied by new sharks: Vox, Ciudadanos and Podemos. These “renovators” have amply demonstrated that they are IDENTICAL to the others. The same deceptions, the same unconditional service to Spanish capital, the same insatiable thirst for power, the same clientelism[14]... Democracy has not been renewed, it has strengthened the state machine against the workers and against the whole population.

The democratic virus led to an ineffectiveness of the struggle in the face of police repression, because “despite some solidarity responses based on massive action against police violence, it was the 'struggle' conceived as peaceful and citizen pressure on capitalist institutions that brought the movement very easily to a dead end” (see note 2).

With the democratic lie, the Spanish bourgeoisie managed to ensure that the May 15 movement was not “articulated around the struggle of the main exploited class that collectively produces the bulk of wealth and ensures the functioning of social life: the factories, hospitals, schools, universities, ports, works, post office...” (op.cit. note 2) but that it was diluted in a totally impotent interclass indignation. Despite some timid attempts to extend it to the work centres, this failed and the movement remained increasingly confined to the public squares. The regroupment and common action of minorities who expressed a “proletarian fringe” in the face of the dominant confusion in the assemblies did not succeed. For this reason, the movement, despite the sympathies it aroused, lost strength until it was reduced to an ever more desperately activist minority.

The impasse of 'indignation'

The slogan of the movement was “indignation”. Indignation is different from revenge, hatred, revenge, compensation and other moral manifestations of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. In this, indignation is more in line with proletarian morality than with these deeply reactionary and destructive sentiments. However, indignation, legitimate as it was, expressed more impotence than strength, more perplexity than certainty. Indignation is a very primary feeling in the class struggle of the proletariat and as such it lacks the capacity to assert, even at an elementary level, the strength, identity and consciousness of our class.

The workers are indignant because of the dismissal of a comrade, because of the manoeuvres of the unions, because of the arrogance and sense of superiority of the bosses and foremen, because of the accidents at work which suddenly take a human life or condemn a comrade to invalidity... However, indignation in and of itself does not define the class terrain of the proletariat if it is not linked to the political autonomy of the class, to its demands and its search for its own perspective; indignation appears as an undifferentiated “human” feeling that any individual of any class can feel and that can be part of any bourgeois or petty-bourgeois struggle. When indignation rises as an independent and absolute category, the proletarian class terrain disappears.[15]

The fact that the mobilised proletarians in Spain adopted the very name “Indignant” as a sign of recognition underlined the obvious difficulty they had in finding the proletarian class path to which they belonged. It was an expression of their impotence and contained the danger of being diverted into a bourgeois, democratic, “popular protest” terrain, totally inter-classist. Indignation is by nature passive and purely moral. It can correspond to an embryonic stage of awareness which must necessarily be overcome by the affirmation of a class terrain, posing the alternative for communism. If it remains the slogan of the movement, the door remains open to its extinction; or if it attempts a more direct confrontation, the result is necessarily its recuperation on a bourgeois terrain, a defeat for the proletariat.

We clearly observed this danger during the mobilisations in the United States against the police killing of George Floyd. The indignation was channelled into a demand for a “more humane” police force that acted “democratically”, i.e. a radically bourgeois terrain of defence of the democratic state and its repressive apparatus.

The young workers who occupied the squares and celebrated the daily mass assemblies needed to put aside this initial conception of “indignation”. The failure to do this and to light the fuse of struggle in the work centres lost the movement.

A mistaken view of the capitalist crisis

While the Indignados movement was a response to the severe capitalist crisis of 2008, the participants stubbornly saw the successive financial collapses, the violent budget cuts that governments were implementing, the brutal austerity they were promoting not as a crisis but rather as a “scam”. The budget cuts, the misery, the precariousness were seen as the result of corruption ("”here is not enough money for all these thieves” was one of the most repeated phrases in the assemblies) and not as a result of the convulsions and the historical impasse of capitalism.

“With the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers bank and the financial crisis of 2008, the bourgeoisie was able to push one more wedge into the consciousness of the proletariat by developing a new ideological campaign on a global scale, aimed at instilling the idea (put forward by the left-wing parties) that it is the ‘crooked bankers’ who are responsible for this crisis, while making it appear that capitalism is personified by traders and the power of money.

The ruling class was thus able to hide the roots of the failure of its system. On the one hand, it sought to pull the working class into defending the ‘protective’ state, since bank rescue measures were supposed to protect small savers. On the other hand, this bank rescue policy has also been used, particularly by the left, to point the finger at governments seeking to defend bankers and the financial world.

But beyond these mystifications, the impact of this campaign on the working class has been to reinforce its powerlessness in the face of an impersonal economic system whose general laws appear to be natural laws that cannot be controlled or modified”. (op cit, note 4)

The majority of participants saw as responsible for their suffering “a handful of 'bad guys' (unscrupulous financiers, ruthless dictators) whereas Capital is a complex network of social relations that must be attacked in its totality and not dispersed by pursuing its multiple and varied expressions (finance, speculation, corruption of political-economic powers)”. (see note 2).

This terrible weakness gave the bourgeoisie an enormous margin of manoeuvre to confuse the movement in all sorts of mystifications, each more demobilising and demoralising than the last.

In the first place, there is no recognition of the historical obsolescence of capitalism and the imperative need to destroy it, but rather it is seen as a system that could be “reformed and improved”.

Secondly, capitalism is not seen as a social relationship but rather as a sum of individuals, companies or sectors (financial, industrial, etc.). This reasoning leaves the door open to the idea that there are ‘better and progressive’ factions of capital while others are ‘worse and reactionary’. The evils of capitalism are not identified with the very nature of a system composed of a set of nations fighting to the death for profit and imperialist domination, but rather with 'bad' individuals, 'finance', 'speculators', etc. That is to say, the way is clear for frontism, i.e for regrouping behind this or that faction of the bourgeoisie considered “less bad” against another fraction stamped as “the worst”. The way is clear for all the traps with which the bourgeoisie has led the proletariat into the barbarism of war and the sacrifice of its living conditions: choosing between democracy and fascism, between dictatorship and democracy, between the lesser evil and the greater evil[16].

Finally, the “fight against corruption” hides the reality that the underlying theft is in the surplus value that capital extracts from the workers in a legal and consensual way through a “labour contract” supposedly signed by equal partners . Corruption is at the basis of the production of surplus value which is legally and structurally extorted from the workers and, therefore, the problem is not corruption but surplus value. The slogan “there's not enough money for all these thieves” hides the reality of capitalist exploitation, the exploitation of the proletariat by the whole of capital.

So, this false vision of the crisis, this campaign against “evil financiers” and “corruption”, undermined the political autonomy of the proletariat, denied capitalist exploitation and the existence of classes and linked proletarians to the idea of frontism and to choosing one's dish from the poisoned menu of capitalist options.

The presence of the radicalised petty bourgeoisie

The assemblies were filled with petty bourgeois radicalised by the effects of the crisis and faced with these elements, the lack of confidence of the young workers in their own strength meant that they allowed themselves to be taken in by the fine words of those sectors, dominated by verbiage, incoherence, cretinism, constant oscillations, empiricism and immediatism.

All genuine movements of the proletariat have been accompanied by layers of the petty bourgeoisie, by non-exploitative social layers. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was able to win peasants and soldiers to its cause. It is necessary to understand the nature of the proletariat and the nature of the petty bourgeoisie and other non-exploitative layers.

“Of all the classes which stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a truly revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product” says the Communist Manifesto.

“The lower classes, the small manufacturers, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasants, all these fight against bourgeoisie to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative; more than that, they are reactionary: they seek to roll back the wheel of history.”

Does this mean that the proletariat must consider the petty bourgeoisie as its enemy? No. What it must do is to fight with all its might against the harmful and destructive influence of the petty bourgeoisie, especially of petty bourgeois ideology. However, it must impose its own class terrain, its political autonomy as a class, its demands, and from this position of strength, win over at least part of the petty bourgeoisie to its cause, given that:

1/ “All historical movements have so far been accomplished by minorities. The proletarian movement is the spontaneous movement of the immense majority for the benefit of the immense majority” (ibid)

2/ The petty bourgeoisie and the non-exploiting strata “if they are revolutionary, it is in consideration of their imminent passage to the proletariat: they then defend their future interests and not their present interests; they abandon their point of view to rally to that of the proletariat” (ibid)

The serious weakness of the May 15 movement was not the presence of layers of the radicalised petty bourgeoisie. The problem was that the young workers, the resolutely proletarian minorities, were not capable of defending the assemblies and getting them to assume their class positions, demands and perspectives. Instead, individualist, citizen approaches, “solutions” such as cooperatives, urban gardens, etc., dominated, i.e. after the first efforts of reflection and intuitions on a class terrain, it was the slide towards petty-bourgeois illusions that ended up predominating so that the game was won for the bourgeoisie.

The contributions of the movement

This ruthless critique of the weaknesses and deviations from which the Indignados movement suffered does not invalidate its proletarian class character and its contributions to future struggles. The proletariat is an exploited and revolutionary class at the same time. Its main strength comes not from a succession of victories but the ability to learn from its defeats.

In her last article, “Order prevails in Berlin”, Rosa Luxemburg, on the eve of her assassination by the henchmen of social democracy, states: “What does the entire history of socialism and of all modern revolutions show us? The first spark of class struggle in Europe, the revolt of the silk weavers in Lyon in 1831, ended with a heavy defeat; the Chartist movement in Britain ended in defeat; the uprising of the Parisian proletariat in the June days of 1848 ended with a crushing defeat; and the Paris commune ended with a terrible defeat. The whole road of socialism – so far as revolutionary struggles are concerned – is paved with nothing but thunderous defeats. Yet, at the same time, history marches inexorably, step by step, toward final victory! Where would we be today without those ‘defeats,’ from which we draw historical experience, understanding, power and idealism? Today, as we advance into the final battle of the proletarian class war, we stand on the foundation of those very defeats; and we can do without any of them, because each one contributes to our strength and understanding” [17]

The terrible lessons we have just outlined are part of the directions that future struggles must follow. However, the struggle of 2011 brings us a series of very important positive elements.

The article we quoted earlier, “The 15 May Movement Five Years Later”, summarises these gains (see note 6). We will highlight some of them.

The general assemblies

The emancipation of the workers will be the work of the workers themselves or it will not be, the First International affirmed. Massive general assemblies, open to all workers, are the concrete response to this necessity. In general assemblies, workers discuss, think, decide and implement agreements TOGETHER. A participant in the 15 May movement exclaimed: "It's marvellous that 10,000 strangers could get together!”

The assemblies are the heart and the brain of workers’ struggles.

The heart: they are a mixture of solidarity, comradeship, unity and fraternity. The brain: because they must be the collective and unitary organ of direction of the movement, analysing the obstacles and dangers that threaten it and proposing the way forward.

But the general assemblies were also a concrete response to the problem we analysed at the beginning: the majority of young workers find themselves atomised and dispersed by working from home, “uber” jobs, small businesses, unemployment situations, etc. By uniting in assemblies, by occupying squares (the movement's slogan was “Occupy the public squares”), they succeeded in creating a place for regrouping, building unity, organising the struggle.

It's not a question of glorifying the assemblies, we've seen how within them, the confusions which plagued the participants, the influx of the petty bourgeoisie and ESPECIALLY the undermining work of the bourgeoisie and specifically of the DRY, ended up removing all strength from them. To borrow a metaphor from the Bible, we could say that these Solomons succeeded in shaving the skull of the proletarian Samson. Faced with this, future assemblies will have to strengthen themselves with a critical assessment of the weaknesses that have appeared:

  • If the central core of the assemblies must be the city general assembly, occupying squares and public buildings, it must be nourished by the activity of a wide network of assemblies in factories and workplaces mainly.
  • The commissions (of coordination, culture, activities, etc.) must be under the strict control of the general assembly to which they must be scrupulously accountable. We must avoid what happened to the May 15 movement where the commissions became instruments of control and sabotage of the assemblies manipulated by groups behind the scenes such as DRY (Democracia Real Ya)

Solidarity

Capitalist society secretes through all its pores, “marginalisation, the atomisation of the individual, the destruction of family relationships, the exclusion of old people from social life, the annihilation of love and affection”, that is to say “the destruction of the very principle of collective life in a society devoid of the slightest project or perspective, even in the short term, and however illusory” (op cit, note 5)

In the face of all this, the May 15th movement has sown the first seeds: “there were demonstrations in Madrid to demand the release of detainees or to prevent the police from arresting migrants; massive actions against house evictions in Spain, Greece or the United States; in Oakland, ‘the assembly of strikers has decided to send out pickets or occupy any company or school that punishes employees or students in any way because they participated in the general strike of November 2nd’.

The movement also showed a search for solidarity between different generations of the working class, for example, young workers welcomed the presence of pensioners who brought their own demands.

However, it was a first step, still timid, undermined by the loss of class identity, and situated more on a terrain of “solidarity in general” than on the universal and liberating terrain of PROLETARIAN CLASS SOLIDARITY. For this, the populist wave that has shaken the central countries (Brexit, Trump...) has eclipsed these attempts, imposing xenophobia and hatred of migrants. The proletariat must regain the terrain of its class solidarity. The General Assemblies must be conceived as an instrument of the whole class, open to workers from all companies, precarious workers, “uberized" workers, the unemployed, pensioners..." 

The struggle must extend by breaking down the barriers of the enterprise, region, nationality, category, race, with the proletariat asserting itself as the class forming a melting pot in which the true humanity unified in communism is revealed. Any struggle must be conceived as part of the struggle of the WHOLE WORKING CLASS, giving as its first priority THE EXTENSION AND UNIFICATION OF THE FIGHTS.

With the weapon of class solidarity, we must fight to the death the FALSE SOLIDARITY propagated by the bourgeoisie, its unions and its parties: “citizen solidarity”, “national solidarity”, charity collections which humiliate the workers by turning them into beggars.

The culture of debate

Today's society condemns us to meaningless work, to consumption, to the reproduction of models of success that cause millions of failures, to the repetition of alienating stereotypes that do nothing but amplify what the dominant ideology repeats. In the face of all this, and as false answers that lead ever further into social and moral putrefaction, there appears “the profusion of sects, the renewal of the religious spirit including in the advanced countries, the rejection of rational, coherent thought even amongst certain ‘scientists’; a phenomenon which dominates the media with their idiotic shows and mind-numbing advertising; the invasion of the same media by the spectacle of violence, horror, blood, massacres, even in programmes designed for children; the vacuity and venality of all ‘artistic’ production: literature, music, painting, architecture, are unable to express anything but anxiety, despair, the breakdown of coherent thought, the void” (op cit note 5)

In the face of this, during the first weeks of the movement in Spain, a lively, massive debate developed, addressing a multitude of issues that reflected concern not only for the present situation but also for the future; not only economic, social or political problems but also moral and cultural issues. The importance of this effort, however timid and burdened by democratic weaknesses and petty-bourgeois approximations, is obvious. Any revolutionary movement of the proletariat always arises from a gigantic mass debate. For example, the backbone of the Russian Revolution of 1917 lay in mass debate and culture. In Ten Days that Shook the World John Reed recalls that “the long-suppressed thirst for education with the revolution took the form of a veritable delirium. From the Smolny Institute alone for the first six months, trains and carriages loaded with literature poured out daily to saturate the country. Russia, insatiable, absorbed all printed matter as hot sand absorbs water. And it was not fables, falsified history, diluted religion and cheap corrupting novels - but social and economic theories, philosophy, the works of Tolstoy, Gogol and Gorky”[18]

This development of the culture of debate is a weapon for the future, because it allows all proletarians to forge their conviction, their enthusiasm, their capacity for struggle, as Marx and Engels put it in The German Ideology : "this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew”.

In concrete terms, the culture of debate allows the proletariat to face three fundamental necessities:

  • To assert itself as a class, providing a framework within which it can win over the non-exploiting social strata to its cause;
  • To acquire a clear consciousness of the objectives and concrete means of its struggle;
  • To fight until it is fully liberated from the weight of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology.

C. Mir 27-12-21

 

[2]  CPE : Contrat Première Embauche, a measure by the French government aimed at legalising precariousness on the pretext of providing young people with employment opportunities.

[5] See our Theses on Decomposition, International Review 107: Theses on decomposition | International Communist Current (internationalism.org) [9]

[7] Since the 1960s, capitalism has been obliged, for its reproduction needs, to generalise university education to a majority of the population. Not out of charity, but with the aim of increasing labour productivity.

[8] At the different levels of big enterprises, for example, in car production, you not only have the direct employees of the factory but also a whole number of auxiliary enterprises where there may be different collective contracts, different working conditions, wages, hours, separate canteens, etc

[9] Nationalism was a dead weight on the Indignados movement in Greece where national flags appeared in the demonstrations and assemblies. In Spain, while there were not many Spanish flags in the demonstrations, many young people who had participated in the assemblies in Barcelona let themselves be drawn into the repulsive movement “for Catalan independence” after 2012. See Spain and Catalonia: two countries to enforce the same misery | International Communist Current (internationalism.org) [11]
[10] For a denunciation of this outfit, see Movimiento ciudadano ¡Democracia Real Ya!: dictadura del Estado contra las asambleas masivas | Corriente Comunista Internacional (internationalism.org) [12]. It should be pointed out that many of those who took part in DRY later on joined the political enterprise of hypocrisy and fraud known as Podemos.

[12]With the development of the political and ideological decomposition of capitalism, the bourgeoisie in the central countries is tending to lose control of the electoral game. From this emerges the populist factions who are ardent defenders of national capital but who work in a chaotic and undisciplined manner, defending imperialist, economic, and other policies that are not in line with the general interests of the capitalist state.

[13] Despite the resistance against DRY’s efforts to impose a “Democratic Ten Commandments” 

[15] For an analysis of the meaning and limitations of indignation see the section on this point in International Review 167 :  Report on the international class struggle to the 24th ICC Congress | International Communist Current (internationalism.org) [16]. See also the our denunciation of the work of  Stéphane Hessel: S’indigner, oui ! contre l’exploitation capitaliste ! (à propos des livres de Stéphane Hessel « Indignez-vous ! » et « Engagez vous !") [17]

 

Rubric: 

Lessons of the workers' movement

Divergences with the Resolution on the International Situation of the 24th ICC congress (explanation of a minority position, by Ferdinand)

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ICC presentation

In continuity with the discussion documents published after the ICC’s 23rd Congress[1] [20], we are publishing  further contributions expressing divergences with the Resolution on the International Situation from the ICC’s 24th Congress[2] [21]. As with the previous contribution by comrade Steinklopfer, the disagreements relate to the understanding of our concept of decomposition, to inter-imperialist tensions and the threat of war, and to the balance of forces between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. In order to avoid further delay connected to the pressure of current events, we are publishing the new contributions from comrades Ferdinand and Steinklopfer without a reply defending the majority position in the ICC, but we will certainly respond to this text in due course. We should point out that these contributions were written before the war in Ukraine.

*      *       *

The ICC defends the scientific principle of clarification through debate, by the means of confrontation of factually based arguments with the goal of reaching a deeper comprehension of the questions the class is confronted with. The present period is difficult for revolutionaries. This was already the case before the Covid pandemic, but during the past two years new events and trends needed an assessment. So, it is no surprise that within a lively revolutionary organisation, controversies about the analysis of the world situation arise.

The major divergences within the organisation concern the following questions of crucial importance for the perspectives of the proletariat:

  • a) How to assess the present balance of class forces, after the abandonment of the concept of the historic course? Is the class moving from defeat to defeat, or is it moving forward?
  • b) How do we measure the subterranean maturation of the class consciousness, the work of the “old mole”? Is there a significant maturation, or conversely a retreat?
  • c) Concerning the economic situation: does the pandemic crisis produce only losers, or are there winners of the situation that can improve their position?
  • d) Concerning the imperialist tensions: are there significant polarisations in the world constellation that increase the danger of a generalised war? Or is the tendency of each against all dominant, and thus an obstacle towards a new bloc constellation?

Already after the 23rd congress of the ICC, held in 2019, the article in the International Review giving an account of its work pointed to controversies in our ranks on the assessment of the world situation, namely at the level of the class struggle, or more specifically the balance of forces between bourgeoisie and proletariat. The presentation of International Review 164 said: “At the congress, there were disagreements on the appreciation of the situation of the class struggle and its dynamic. Has the proletariat suffered ideological defeats which are seriously weakening its capacities? Is there a subterranean maturation of consciousness, or, on the contrary, are we seeing a deepening of the reflux in class identity and consciousness?”

At the same time, in 2019, we abandoned the concept of the "historic course" because we recognised that the dynamic of the class struggle in the present period of decomposition could no longer be adequately analysed within this framework.

In the discussions between 2019 and 2021, and finally in the preparation of the 24th congress resolution on the international situation, we were confronted with a continuation of the differences in the assessment of the current world situation.

To an important extent the controversy was made public in August 2020 under the heading of the “internal debate”. The article of comrade Steinklopfer, defending minority positions, and the reply of the ICC, showed that the field of the debate encompassed not only the question of the dynamics of the class struggle and class consciousness but in a broader sense the appreciation of the period of capitalist decomposition, notably the concrete application of the concept of decomposition – a notion that so far is a distinguishing characteristic of the ICC within the proletarian political milieu.   

Because I had similar disagreements as comrade Steinklopfer with the majority position in the recent period, I was invited to present them not only through internal contributions but with an article for publication explaining my differences with the Resolution on the International Situation from the 24th Congress.

Most of the amendments I proposed to the Congress resolution turned around the economic question, namely the dynamics, the weight, and the prospects of Chinese state capitalism. Simultaneously, I supported many amendments of comrade Steinklopfer that defended the same or compatible orientations.

My divergences can be summed up under the following headings (the numbers refer to the version of the Resolution on our English website):

  • China, its economic power, and state capitalism (points 9 and 16 of the Resolution);
  • the evolution of the global economic crisis and of state capitalism in decomposition (points 14, 15 and 19);
  • imperialist polarisation and the threat of war (points 12 and 13);
  • he balance of class forces and the question of the subterranean maturation of consciousness (point 28).

1. The evolution of China, its economic power and state capitalism

The Resolution, after showing the political and ideological decomposition in the US and Europe, says: “And while Chinese state propaganda highlights the growing disunity and incoherence of the ‘democracies’, presenting itself as a bulwark of global stability, Beijing’s increasing recourse to internal repression, as against the ‘democracy movement’ in Hong Kong and the Uighur Muslims, is actually evidence that China is a ticking time bomb. China’s extraordinary growth is itself a product of decomposition.” (point 9)

Then it declares: “The economic opening up during the Deng period in the 1980s mobilised huge investments, especially from the US, Europe and Japan. The Tiananmen Massacre in 1989 made it clear that this economic opening was being implemented by an inflexible political apparatus which has only been able to avoid the fate of Stalinism in the Russian bloc through a combination of state terror, a ruthless exploitation of labour power which subjugates hundreds of millions of workers to a permanent migrant worker status, and a frenzied economic growth whose foundations are now looking increasingly shaky. The totalitarian control over the whole social body, the repressive hardening of the Stalinist faction of Xi Jinping, is not an expression of strength but a manifestation of the weakness of the state, whose cohesion is endangered by the existence of centrifugal forces within society and important struggles between cliques within the ruling class.” (ibid.)

In point 16 the Resolution first claims that China is confronted with the reduction of markets across the world, with the desire of numerous states to free themselves from dependence on Chinese production, and with the risk of insolvency facing a number of countries involved in the Silk Road project, and that China is therefore pursuing a shift towards the stimulation of domestic demand and autarky at the level of key technologies in order to be able to gain ground beyond its own borders and develop its war economy. These shifts, says the resolution, are “provoking powerful conflicts within the ruling class, between partisans of the direction of the economy by the Chinese Communist Party and those linked to the market economy and the private sector, between the ‘planners’ of the central authority and local authorities who want to guide investment themselves” (point 16).

The assertions that China is a ticking time bomb, that its state is weak and its economic growth looking shaky are expression of an underestimation of the real economic and imperialist development of China in the last 40 years. Let us check first the facts and then the theoretical foundations on which this wrong analysis is based.

It may be that the internal tensions in China are in reality stronger than they seem to be –on the one side the contradictions within society in general, on the other one those within the ruling Party in particular. We cannot trust the Chinese propaganda about the strength of its system. But what the western or other non-Chinese media tell us about the contradictions in China is propaganda as well – and in addition it is often wishful thinking. The elements mentioned in the Resolution are not convincing: A totalitarian control over the whole social body and oppression of "democratic free speech" can be signs of a weakness of the ruling class. I agree with this. As we know from the period after 1968 with a rising proletarian movement, democracy is much more effective in controlling the working class, and social contradictions in general, than authoritarian regimes are. For example, in the 1970s the bourgeoisie in Spain, Portugal and Greece replaced authoritarian regimes by democratic ones because of the need to handle the social turmoil. But is the working class in China in a similar dynamic as the proletariat in southern Europe in the 1970s? I pose this question with a view to the balance of forces between the classes, which in the end we can only measure correctly as a worldwide one.

The Resolution treats the question of the balance of class forces in its last part, and I will return to the point. But we can anticipate one thing: there are no elements in favour of the thesis that the proletariat is threatening Xi Jinping's regime.

The same is the case for other contradictions within mainland China and its political apparatus. Although differences of interests between the ruling Party and very rich Chinese tech tycoons, like Jack Ma (Alibaba) and Wang Xing (Meituan), are obvious, the latter do not seem to propose an alternative model for the People's Republic, and even less do they constitute an organised opposition. Also, within the Party important ideological struggles seem to belong to the past. Before 2012 and Xi Jinping's presidency the so-called "cake debate" within high party circles took place: there were two factions. One said China should focus on making the cake – China’s economy – bigger. The other one wanted to share the existing cake more fairly. A partisan of the second position was Bo Xilai, sentenced to life in prison for corruption and abuse of power, one year after Xi Jinping's rise to the head of the party and the state. Meanwhile the fair share position has become the official doctrine.[3] And there are no signs of further debate.

According to available information[4], purges in the apparatus of repression started in early 2021. In the police, the secret police, the judiciary and prison system officially more than 170'000 people have been punished because of – corruption. This is a cynical display of power. The same goes for the Orwellian surveillance system. Equally crazy is the personality cult around Xi Jinping. But is this evidence of the “weakness of the state”? Of a “ticking time bomb” under the president’s chair?

As far as the internal contradictions of the People’s Republic are concerned, my thesis is the opposite one. The ruling circles in this country are using the pandemic crisis to restructure its economy, its army, its empire. Even if the economic growth in China has slowed down in recent times, behind this is to some extent a calculated plan of the ruling political elite to harness the excesses of private capital and to strengthen state capitalism for the imperialist challenge. The Party is clipping the wings of some of the most profitable enterprises and richest tycoons; it is letting air escape from some speculation bubbles in order to control the whole economic activity more strictly – with the propaganda that all this is to protect the workers, children, the environment and free competition.

The purges in the apparatus of repression and the display of authoritarian power are indications of hidden tensions (not only in Xinjiang and Hong Kong). But no alternative model for the course of Chinese state capitalism is visible.

This is my reading of the factual side.

If we want to understand the meaning of the present divergences in the analysis of China, we have to consider the theory behind the majority position and thus the present resolution.

The development of China has been downplayed in our ranks for decades. This is linked to a wrong, schematic understanding of capitalist decadence. One of our reference texts of the beginning of the ICC’s existence, “The proletarian struggle under decadence” put it like this: “The period of capitalist decadence is characterised by the impossibility of any new industrialised nations emerging. The countries which didn’t make up for lost time before World War I were subsequently doomed to stagnate in a state of total underdevelopment, or to remain chronically backward in relation to the countries at the top of the sandcastle. This has been the case with big nations like India or China, whose ‘national independence’ or even their so-called ‘revolution’ (read the setting up of a draconian form of state capitalism) didn’t allow them to break out of underdevelopment or destitution.” (“The proletarian struggle under decadence”, International Review 23, 1980).

It was only in 2015, in the framework of the critical balance sheet of 40 years of the ICC’s analyses, that we officially recognised the error in this schema:

  • “This ‘catastrophist’ vision is due, in large part, to a lack of deepening our analysis of state capitalism (…) It is this error of denying any possibility of capitalism’s expansion in its decadent period which explains the difficulties the ICC has had in understanding the dizzying growth and industrial development in China (and other peripheral countries) after the collapse of the Eastern bloc.” (“40 years after the foundation of the ICC”, International Review 156, 2015)

But this recognition was half-hearted. Soon the old schemes crept again into our analyses. The implications of the contradiction between our “classical” views and reality were too radical. Bridging this contradiction would have required going to the roots of the economic laws of motion that are also at work in decadent capitalism. Instead, the problem was fixed with the formulation “China’s extraordinary growth is a product of decomposition” (point 9 of the present resolution, already quoted above) – brilliant in its vagueness. The idea was introduced in 2019, with the 23rd international Congress resolution that said: “It took the unprecedented circumstances of the historical period of decomposition to allow China to rise, without which it would not have happened.” (International Review 164).

But whereas this latter formulation is correct in the sense that the opening up of the world for capital investment (globalisation) took place mainly in the period of decomposition on the eve and after the collapse of the bloc system, and that this was part of the conditions allowing the rise of China as the world's workshop, the sentence about its growth as a "product of decomposition" is a step back towards the "catastrophist vision". Everything is a product of decomposition – and every growth is thus void and fake. Furthermore: everything is decomposing in a homogenous manner, a sort of smooth disintegration not only of human relations, morals, culture and society, but of capitalism itself.

The present Resolution is not able to grasp the reality of China's rise during the last four decades and to explain it. As I have already quoted above, it simply states, "this economic opening was being implemented by an inflexible political apparatus which has only been able to avoid the fate of Stalinism in the Russian bloc through a combination of state terror, a ruthless exploitation of labour power which subjugates hundreds of millions of workers to a permanent migrant worker status, and a frenzied economic growth whose foundations are now looking increasingly shaky" (point 9).

One part of this reasoning is tautological: “the economic opening was implemented by … a frenzied economic growth” –the economic success was due to the economic success.

For the rest the Resolution’s explanation of China’s success in contrast to the fate of the Russian bloc before 1989 is that the performance was a result of a “combination of state terror” and “a ruthless exploitation of labour power which subjugates hundreds of millions of workers to a permanent migrant worker status”. What does this explain? Does the resolution suggest that a “combination of state terror” and “ruthless exploitation” are the ingredients for a successful capitalism? And are they distinct from Stalinism in Russia?

I proposed to delete the sentence and supported instead a formulation that Comrade Steinklopfer suggested with one of his amendments: "(…) It is not a coincidence that China, unlike the USSR and its former imperialist bloc, did not collapse towards the end of the 20th century. Its take-off was based on two specific advantages: on the existence of a gigantic internal extra-capitalist zone based on the peasantry which could be transformed into an industrial proletariat, and on a particularly old and highly developed cultural tradition (until modern industrialisation began in Europe, China had always been one of the main centres of the world economy and of knowledge and technology)."

It is certainly debatable whether the term "extra-capitalist zones" is still suitable to describe what is, however, a significant fact, namely the new integration of an available labour power into the formal relationship and exchange between capital and wage labour. The idea is clear: the process of capital accumulation in China was real, not just fake. It took place thanks to resources that were not yet formally determined as the sale of labour power and the capitalists’ appropriation of its use value. As with all accumulation under capitalism this process in post-Mao China required newly available labour power (and raw material, i.e. to a large extent nature, thus also an “extra-capitalist zone” in a certain sense). The former peasants in the countryside moved to the cities and offered the labour power necessary for capitalist exploitation.

To prevent the fate of Stalinism in the Russian bloc it was also necessary for China to re-admit the sanction of the capitalist market (Adam Smith's "invisible hand"), especially at two levels: the laying-off of workers and the bankrupting of non-profitable companies. Only these measures implemented by the ruling circles around and after Deng Xiaoping enabled the private capital sector to function and the Chinese economy to compete with the rest of the world. All this is neglected by the existing Resolution. And the amendments that should correct the deficiencies were rejected with the explanation that they would put in question or relativise “the impact of decomposition on the Chinese state”.   

Indeed, the reluctance of the Resolution to recognise the reality of China's strength is rooted in the understanding of capitalist decadence – and thus decomposition. We have never concluded the debate about the different analyses of the post-1945 economic boom. The majority position within the ICC seems to be the one defined as "extra-capitalist markets and debt" (cf. International Review 133-141).[5] This theoretical position believes that the necessary new markets for the sale of increased production can only be either extra-capitalist or created somehow artificially by debt. This is coherent with a literal understanding of a central argument in Rosa Luxemburg's Accumulation of Capital [6] – but at odds with reality. It is not the right place here for a deeper analysis of this Achille’s heel of the ICC’s economic analysis.

It is sufficient for the understanding of the divergences that the official ICC position denies the fact that capitalist accumulation also means creation of new solvent markets within the capitalist milieu, on the basis of exchange between wage labour and capital (although not sufficient in comparison to the needs of unfettered accumulation – the latter point is not controversial). Because the appearance of new solvent markets in the period of decadence is obvious the present ICC position must explain their creation somehow. And as significant extra-capitalist markets (in the sense of solvent buyers of the produced commodities) can no longer be detected, ongoing accumulation is “explained” by the creation of debt, or tricks that “cheat the law of value”. I will come back to this question in the context of subsequent points of the Resolution.

2. The evolution of the capitalist crisis and state capitalism in decomposition

Under the title “An unprecedented economic crisis”, the Resolution tries to offer an analysis of the consequences of the Covid 19 pandemic on the world economy. While I agree that the situation is unprecedented and thus the consequences not easy to predict, the understanding of capitalist accumulation and crisis in the framework of the Resolution is not sufficient to analyse the current reality and its driving forces. In the view of the majority of the ICC that adopted the Resolution in its present shape and rejected the amendments proposed by Steinklopfer and myself, everything is subordinated to “decomposition”, a kind of homogenous fragmentation. This understanding of the period of decomposition is schematic and – to the extent that it denies the persistence of elementary capitalist laws – for example capital concentration and centralisation –an abandonment of marxism. This view explicitly rejects the idea that the economic earthquake taking place as a consequence of the pandemic produces not only losers but also winners. It implicitly refutes the persistence of the centralisation and concentration of capital, of the transfer of profits from spheres with less technology to those with higher organic composition, and thus denies a further polarisation between the successful and the losers. The pandemic accelerated centrifugal tendencies typical for the period of decomposition, but not in a homogenous way. Different polarisations are taking place. The rich are getting richer, the profitable companies more attractive, those states that handled Covid 19 well extend their markets at the expense of the incompetent ones and strengthen their apparatus. These polarisations and increased disparities in the world economy are part of a reality neglected by the present Resolution, which sees only fragmentation, losers, and uncertainty. In point 14 it says: “This irruption of the effects of decomposition into the economic sphere is directly affecting the evolution of the new phase of open crisis, ushering in a completely unprecedented situation in the history of capitalism. The effects of decomposition, by profoundly altering the mechanisms of state capitalism which up till now have been set up to ‘accompany’ and limit the impact of the crisis, are introducing a factor of instability and fragility, of growing uncertainty.”

The Resolution underestimates the fact that the strong economies are far better off than the weak ones: “One of the most important manifestations of the gravity of the current crisis, unlike past situations of open economic crisis, and unlike the crisis of 2008, resides in the fact that the central countries (Germany, China and the US) have been hit simultaneously and are among the most affected by the recession. In China this has meant a sharp drop in the rate of growth in 2020.” (point 15).

And it denies that China is a winner of the situation: “The only nation to have a positive growth rate in 2020 (2%), China has not emerged triumphant or strengthened from the pandemic crisis, even though it has momentarily gained ground at the expense of its rivals. On the contrary.” (point 16).

The driving force of a capitalist is the search for the highest profit. In times of recession when all or most of the capitalists make losses, the highest profit is transformed into the lowest loss. Those companies and states with fewer losses than their rivals are performing better. In this logic, China is one of the winners of the pandemic crisis so far. By the way: the US is also economically better off than most of the highly industrialised and emerging countries, in contradiction to the quoted sentence in point 15 of the resolution.

The polarising tendencies that I put forward are not in contradiction with the framework of decomposition. On the contrary; the growing disparities increase global instability. But this instability is uneven. The pandemic leads to further concentration of competitive capital, to the replacement of living labour by machines and robots, to increased organic composition. The capital of the highest organic composition attracts parts of the profits produced by the less competitive ones. All this takes place on a relatively shrinking basis of living labour, because more and more of the latter is becoming superfluous.

On the one hand this means a growing and staggering rift between the profitable parts of the world economy and those that are not. On the other hand, it means a merciless race between the most advanced players for the remaining profits.

Both of these tendencies do not enhance stability – but their reality is contested by the “decomposition everywhere” position. The latter is in permanent search for phenomena of dislocation and disintegration, losing sight of the more profound and concrete tendencies that are typical for the current shifts.

Finally, the Resolution speaks about “cheating of the law of value” and the “laws of capitalism” respectively, without explaining what these laws are and what their cheating would mean:

  • “Not only does the weight of debt condemn the capitalist system to ever more devastating convulsions (bankruptcy of enterprises and even of states, financial and monetary crises, etc) but also, by more and more restraining the capacity of states to cheat the laws of capitalism, it can only hinder their ability to relaunch their respective national economies.” (point 19).
    “The bourgeoisie will continue to fight to the death for the survival of its system, whether by directly economic means (such as the exploitation of untapped resources and potential new markets, typified by China’s New Silk Road project) or political, above all through the manipulation of credit and cheating the law of value. This means that there can still be phases of stabilisation in between economic convulsions with increasingly profound consequences.” (point 20).

These formulations do not explain anything. They are an improvised disguise for the lack of a clear concept. And deprived of the latter everything becomes just “instability and fragility” and “growing uncertainty”.

3. Imperialist polarisation and threat of war

A consequence of the neglect of the economic polarisation by the last International Congress is the underestimation of imperialist tensions and of the threat of war.

After admitting that the growing confrontation between the US and China tends to take centre stage, and giving examples of new alliances, the Resolution downplays the danger of a future bloc constellation with the following words: “However, this does not mean that we are heading towards the formation of stable blocs and a generalised world war. The march towards world war is still obstructed by the powerful tendency towards indiscipline, every man for himself and chaos at the imperialist level, while in the central capitalist countries capitalism does not yet dispose of the political and ideological elements - including in particular a political defeat of the proletariat - that could unify society and smooth the way towards world war. The fact that we are still living in an essentially multipolar world is highlighted in particular by the relationship between Russia and China. While Russia has shown itself very willing to ally with China on specific issues, generally in opposition to the US, it is no less aware of the danger of subordinating itself to its eastern neighbour, and is one of the main opponents of China’s ‘New Silk Road’ towards imperialist hegemony.” (point 12)

These sentences are coherent with the “uncertainty” in the economic question and avoid a clear statement on the present imperialist tendencies. The resolution is half-hearted when it admits the obvious confrontation between the US and China and insists that “however” this does not mean the “formation of stable blocs”. The majority view has not yet drawn the consequences of our recognition at the 23rd International Congress that the concept of the historic course is no longer useful for the analysis of the present. It still tries to understand the current situation within the old scheme of the Cold War, buried under the rubble of the Berlin Wall. Whether the alliances in formation do become “stable blocs” or not is not the central question if we want to analyse the danger of a generalised or nuclear war – both of which are most serious threats to a communist perspective.

The resolution answers questions that are no longer posed, and it misses the real questions. I will come back to this point in the following part of the critique, dealing with the balance of class forces.

A further revealing sign of the persistence of the old vision is the following formulation in the Resolution: “While we are not seeing a controlled march towards war led by disciplined military blocs, we cannot rule out the danger of unilateral military outbreaks or even grotesque accidents that would mark a further acceleration of the slide towards barbarism.” (point 13).

The capitalist logic of the polarisation between China and the US pushes both to find allies, to take part in the arms race and to head towards war. Whether this march is controlled or not is a different question. But first we should state that both China and the US are looking for alliances and preparing war. Although a static view may lead us to conclude that “we are still living in an essentially multipolar world” (point 12) the dynamics are towards bipolarity.  

Concerning the question of the stability of the alliances and the discipline of its components: the fact is that the US is offensive in its search for allies against China. The latter is at a disadvantage in several respects – at the levels of its army, its technology, the geography. But the Middle Kingdom is catching up with determination at the former levels.   

This should remind us of an old thesis in class society, labelled the Thucydides Trap, which says "when one great power threatens to displace another, war is almost always the result" (Alison Graham, 2015). Thucydides, the father of scientific history, wrote more than 2400 years ago about the primary cause of the Peloponnesian War that it was the “growth in power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta”. It is sure that we are living in a very different world, but still in a class society. Should we think that capitalism in its period of decomposition is more rational and thus more inclined to avoid war?

  • I think that the proletariat in the central countries is still a brake on the way to a generalised war. I agree with this idea, expressed in the above quoted point of the Resolution. However, I do not share the view that the typical expressions of decomposition as described by the resolution such as the “powerful tendency towards indiscipline, every man for himself and chaos at the imperialist level” are real obstacles to generalised or nuclear wars. That’s why I agreed with and supported a further amendment proposed by comrade Steinklopfer, which was however rejected by the majority: “Throughout decadent capitalism to date, of the two main expressions of the chaos generated by the decline of bourgeois society – imperialist conflicts between states and loss of control within each national capital – within the central zones of capitalism itself the former tendency has prevailed over the latter. Assuming, as we do, that this will continue to be the case in the context of decomposition, this means that only the proletariat can be an obstacle to wars between the main powers, not however the divisions within the ruling class within those countries. Although, under certain circumstances, these divisions can delay the outbreak of imperialist war, they can also catalyse them.”

Not only with regard to the question of bloc constellations, but also with regard to the role of the working class, we have to consider the consequences of our overcoming in 2019 of the historic course concept. In 1978, in International Review 18, the ICC formulated the criteria for evaluating the historic course in the following terms:

  • “By analysing the conditions which made it possible for the two imperialist wars to break out, we can draw the following general lessons:
    -- the balance of forces between bourgeoisie and proletariat can only be assessed on a world scale, and can’t be based on exceptions which may arise in secondary areas: it’s essentially by studying the situation in a few large countries that we can deduce the real nature of this balance of forces;
    -- in order for an imperialist war to break out, capitalism needs first to inflict a profound defeat on the proletariat -- above all an ideological defeat, but also a physical one if the proletariat has shown a strong combativity (Italy, Germany and Spain between the wars);
    -- this defeat must not just leave the class passive but must get the workers to adhere enthusiastically to bourgeois ideals (‘demo­cracy’, ‘anti-fascism’, ‘socialism in one country’); adhesion to these ideals presupposes:
    a. that they have a semblance of reality (the possibility of an unlimited, problem-free development of capitalism and ‘democracy’, the proletarian origins of the regime in Russia);
    b. that they are in one way or another associated with the defence of proletarian interests;
    c. that this association is defended among workers by organisations which have the confidence of the workers, due to the fact that, in the past, they did defend their interests. In other words, those bourgeois ideals are propagated by former proletarian organisations which have betrayed the class.
    In broad outline these are the conditions which, in the past, allowed imperialist wars to break out. That is not to say that, a priori, a future imperialist war would need to have identical conditions. But to the extent that the bourgeoisie has become conscious of the dangers involved in a premature outbreak of hostilities (despite all its preparations, even World War II gave rise to working class reactions in Italy in 1945 and Germany 1944-45), it would be a mistake to con­sider that it would launch itself into a confron­tation unless it knew it has the same degree of control as it had in 1939, or at least 1914. In other words, for a new imperialist war to be possible, then at least the criteria listed above must be present, and if not, some others which can compensate for them”

At the 23rd Congress in 2019 we stated that these criteria no longer apply to the present situation. So, we have to pose the question whether the bourgeoisie, for unleashing war, still needs a “physical defeat” and “enthusiastic adherence to bourgeois ideals”.

4. The balance of class forces and the question of subterranean maturation of the consciousness

Despite this general theoretical controversy, at the level of the concepts and criteria for an assessment, we seem to agree that the proletariat is still an obstacle for the bourgeoisie to wage a war which the great bastions of the proletariat in the central countries would have to support somehow. The Resolution claims that the proletariat has not yet suffered the decisive "political defeat" (point 12). In doing so, the majority position persists in the central idea of the concept of the historic course: either course to war or course to revolution. Thus, the matrix from the time of the Cold War remains relevant, although we found at the 23rd International Congress that this scheme is ultimately no longer suitable if we want to assess today's balance of forces. It is of no surprise that this weakness is also expressed in the parts of the Resolution that speak about the class struggle: “Despite the enormous problems facing the proletariat, we reject the idea that the class has already been defeated on a global scale, or is on the verge of such a defeat comparable to that of the period of counter-revolution, a defeat of a kind from which the proletariat would possibly no longer be able to recover.” (point 28)

The sentence is wrong in both: the premise – and its apparently logical consequence.

The starting question is not exactly whether the proletariat has already been defeated on a global scale – thus definitively defeated, or almost defeated to a comparable extent to that of the period of counter-revolution. If we agree on the fact that the world proletariat has suffered a series of defeats during the last 40 years or so, we have to find criteria to measure the dimension of the defeat(s). The question is not that posed by the horror of the physical defeat of the 1930s – death or life, extermination of the non-identical. For the moment, it is not an all-or-nothing situation, but a gradual degradation of class consciousness at least in its extent. My hypothesis is that it is an asymptotic process towards definitive defeat.

So, the logical consequence is not “a defeat of a kind from which the proletariat would possibly no longer be able to recover”. If the hypothesis is correct (a gradual process of loss of consciousness, first of all of the consciousness of its distinct class identity), the conclusion must be: the working class can still invert the process, make a sort of U-turn. But it must become aware of the negative dynamic. The revolutionaries have the responsibility to speak about it in the clearest possible terms. 

The wrong matrix is in the Resolution’s description and understanding of the concrete state of the class struggle: “the fact that, just prior to the pandemic, we saw several embryonic and very fragile signs of a reappearance of the class struggle, especially in France 2019.  And even if this dynamic was then largely blocked by the pandemic and the lockdowns, there were workers’ protests in several countries even during the pandemic, particularly around issues of health and safety at work” (ibid.).

The underlying vision is that of a smooth dynamic towards a stronger class consciousness – thus a positive dynamic, or at least a kind of static situation: neither positive nor negative, so somehow neutral, on the basis of an intact class combativeness.  

Whereas my assessment is that of a dynamic of retreat of class consciousness –a negative dynamic that must be turned around. Fortunately, combativeness still shows its head here and there. But combativeness is not yet consciousness, even an increase in the former does not yet imply an enlargement or a deepening of the latter.

Essential for the proletariat and its political organisations is the correct assessment of the present situation, together with its inner dynamic. The tasks of the hour for revolutionaries obviously depend on the understanding of this objective and concrete situation.

At a subsequent level we have to consider the question of the “old mole” of Marx (in his The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte). We have the habit of speaking about this phenomenon in terms of the subterranean maturation of class consciousness. The Resolution underlines a potential for a profound proletarian revival witnessed by, among other factors: “the small but significant signs of a subterranean maturation of consciousness, manifesting itself in efforts towards a global reflection on the failure of capitalism and the need for another society in some movements (particularly the Indignados in 2011), but also through the emergence of young elements looking for class positions and turning towards the heritage of the communist left” (ibid.).

The vague formulation about “small but significant signs of a subterranean maturation of consciousness” is a compromise between two irreconcilable opposites: forward or backward? Which direction of the movement, increase or retreat of the class consciousness even on its subterranean, non-visible layers?

In discussions before and during the Congress I have defended the view that there is no significant subterranean maturation in the class. We need the concept of subterranean maturation in order to fight councilist views and similar practice. It is an acquisition of the ICC that subterranean maturation takes place also in moments of retreat of struggles or even in periods of counter-revolution.

But it’s a different thing to say – as the majority claims – that the movement of this maturation is always an upward one.

If one asserts that maturation is in all periods an increasing movement, a regression is excluded. This means underestimating two things. On the one hand we underestimate the depth of the difficulties of our class, including of their most conscious parts, and on the other hand we underestimate the role and the specific tasks of revolutionaries in the present period. This task is not only a quantitative one, by spreading revolutionary positions, but it is above all a qualitative, theoretical work of analysing in depth the present tendencies in the different fields: shifts in the economy, the imperialist tensions, and the dynamics in the class, above all at the level of consciousness. There is certainly the potential for a development of consciousness, but potential and realisation are not the same.

Ferdinand, January 2022

[3] That did not help Bo Xilai, because he was officially in jail, not because of his allegedly wrong political orientation, but because of corruption and abuse of power.

[4] If I do not literally quote from other sources, I base the information in this article on Wikipedia and The Economist.

[5] The attentive reader of our resolutions will come to this conclusion although the ICC congresses wisely never put the theoretical concepts to the vote.

[6] Ch. 26, towards the end: “Internal capitalist trade can at best realise only certain quantities, of value contained in the social product: the constant capital that has been used up, the variable capital, and the consumed part of the surplus value. That part of the surplus value, however, which is earmarked for capitalisation, must be realised elsewhere”

Life of the ICC: 

General and theoretical questions: 

Rubric: 

Internal debate on the world situation

Ukraine Dossier: Capitalism is War - War on Capitalism!

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A selection of articles, analyses, leaflets and statements on the unfolding inter-imperialist war following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Rubric: 

Special Dossier "War in Ukraine"

Against imperialist war - the class struggle!

  • 316 reads

It only took one night for the thunder of guns and the howling of bombs to resound again in Ukraine, at the gates of the historical cradle of a now rotting capitalism. In a few weeks, this war of unprecedented scale and brutality will have devastated entire cities, thrown millions of women, children and old people onto the frozen roads of winter, sacrificing countless human lives on the altar of the Fatherland. Kharkiv, Sumy or Irpin are now in ruins. In the industrial port of Mariopol, which has been completely razed to the ground, the conflict has cost the lives of no less than 5,000 people, probably more. The devastation and horrors of this war are reminiscent of the terrifying images of Grozny, Fallujah or Aleppo. But where it has taken months, sometimes years, to reach such devastation, in Ukraine there has been no "murderous escalation": in barely a month, the belligerents have thrown all their forces into the carnage and devastated one of the largest countries in Europe!

War is a terrifying moment of truth for decadent capitalism: by exhibiting its machines of death, the bourgeoisie suddenly removes the hypocritical mask of civilisation, peace and compassion that it pretends to wear with unbearable arrogance, typical of ruling classes that have become anachronistic. It is pouring out a furious torrent of propaganda, all the better to conceal its real face – that of a mass murderer. How can one not be seized with horror at the sight of these poor Russian kids, conscripts of 19 or 20 years old, with their adolescent faces, transformed into killers, as in Bucha and in other recently abandoned areas? How can we not be indignant when Zelensky, the "servant of the people", shamelessly takes an entire population hostage by decreeing the "general mobilisation" of all men from 18 to 60 years old, henceforth forbidden to leave the country? How can one not be horrified by the bombed hospitals, by the terrified and starving civilians, by the summary executions, by the corpses buried in kindergartens and by the heart-rending cry of the orphans?

The war in Ukraine is an odious manifestation of capitalism's dizzying plunge into chaos and barbarism. A sinister picture is emerging before our eyes: for the past two years, the Covid pandemic has considerably accelerated this process, of which it is itself the monstrous product. (1) The IPCC is predicting cataclysms and irreversible climate change, further threatening humanity and biodiversity on a global scale. Major political crises are multiplying, as we saw after Trump's defeat in the United States; the spectre of terrorism hangs over society, as does the nuclear risk that this war has brought back to the fore. The simultaneity and accumulation of all these phenomena is not an unfortunate coincidence; on the contrary, it bears witness to the condemnation of murderous capitalism in the court of history.

If the Russian army has crossed the border, it is certainly not to defend the “Russian people” “besieged by the West”, nor to “help” the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who are victims of the “Nazification” of the Kiyiv government. Nor is the rain of bombs falling on Ukraine the product of the “delirium” of a “mad autocrat”, as the press repeats every time it is necessary to justify a massacre (2) and to conceal the fact that this conflict, like all the others, is first of all the manifestation of a decadent and militarised bourgeois society that has nothing left to offer to humanity but its destruction!

They don't care about the death and destruction, the chaos and instability on their borders: for Putin and his clique, it was necessary to defend the interests of Russian capital and its place in the world, both of which have been weakened by the West’s increasing advance into its traditional sphere of influence. The Russian bourgeoisie can present itself as a "victim" of NATO, but Putin has never hesitated, faced with the failure of his offensive, to carry out a dreadful campaign of scorched earth and massacres, exterminating everything in his path, including the Russian-speaking populations that he had supposedly come to protect!

Nor is there anything to expect from Zelensky and his entourage of corrupt politicians and oligarchs. This former comedian is now playing to perfection his role as an unscrupulous flatterer for the interests of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie. Through an intense nationalist campaign, he has succeeded in arming the population, sometimes by force, and in recruiting a whole pack of mercenaries and gunmen who have been elevated to the rank of "heroes of the nation". Zelensky is now touring Western capitals, addressing all the parliaments to beg for the delivery of more and more weapons and ammunition. As for the “heroic Ukrainian resistance”, it does what all the armies in the world do: it massacres, plunders and does not hesitate to beat or even execute prisoners!

All the democratic powers pretend to be indignant about the “war crimes” perpetrated by the Russian army. What hypocrisy! Throughout history, they have never stopped piling up corpses and ruins in the four corners of the world. While crying over the fate of the population victimised by the "Russian ogre", the Western powers deliver astronomical quantities of weapons of war, provide training and all the necessary intelligence for the attacks and bombings of the Ukrainian army, including the neo-Nazi Azov regiment!

Above all, by multiplying its provocations, the American bourgeoisie has done everything possible to push Moscow into a war that is lost in advance. For the US, the main thing is to bleed Russia dry and to have a free hand to break the hegemonic pretensions of China, the main target of US power. This war also allows the United States to contain and thwart the great Chinese imperialist project of the “New Silk Road”. To achieve its ends, the “great American democracy” did not hesitate to encourage a totally irrational and barbaric military adventure, and consequently increasing destabilisation and chaos in the vicinity of Western Europe.

The proletariat must not choose one side against the other! It has no homeland to defend and must fight nationalism and the chauvinist hysteria of the bourgeoisie everywhere! It must fight with its own weapons and methods against the war!

To fight against war, we must fight against capitalism

Today, the proletariat in Ukraine, crushed by more than 60 years of Stalinism, has suffered a major defeat and has allowed itself to be seduced by the sirens of nationalism. In Russia, even if the proletariat showed itself to be a bit more reticent, its inability to curb the warlike impulses of its bourgeoisie explains why the ruling clique was able to send 200,000 soldiers to the front without fearing any workers’ reactions.

In the main capitalist powers, in Western Europe and in the USA, the proletariat today has neither the strength nor the political capacity to oppose this conflict directly through its international solidarity and the struggle against the bourgeoisie in all countries. It is for the moment not in a position to fraternise and to enter into a massive struggle to stop the massacre.

However, although the current tide of propaganda with its attendant demonstrations risk leading it into the dead end of defending pro-Ukrainian nationalism or into the false alternative of pacifism, the proletariat of the Western countries, with its experience of class struggles and the shenanigans of the bourgeoisie, still remains the main antidote to the death spiral of the capitalist system. The Western bourgeoisie has been careful not to intervene directly in Ukraine because it knows that the working class will not accept the daily sacrifice of thousands of soldiers enlisted in military confrontations.

Although disoriented and still weakened by this war, the working class of the Western countries retains the potential to develop its resistance to the new sacrifices generated by the sanctions against the Russian economy and by the colossal increase of military budgets: galloping inflation, the rising cost of most of the products of everyday life and the acceleration of all the other attacks against its living and working conditions

Already, proletarians can and must oppose all the sacrifices demanded by the bourgeoisie. It is through its struggles that the proletariat will be able to create a balance of force against the ruling class and thus hold back its murderous arm! For the working class, producer of all wealth, is, in the long run, the only force in society capable of putting an end to war by taking the path of overthrowing capitalism.

This is, moreover, what history showed us when the proletariat rose up in Russia in 1917 and in Germany the following year, putting an end to the war in an immense revolutionary wave. And before that, as the World War raged on, revolutionaries stayed at their posts by intransigently defending the elementary principle of proletarian internationalism. It is now the responsibility of revolutionaries to pass on the experience of the workers' movement. In the face of war, their first responsibility is to speak with one voice, to firmly wave the flag of internationalism, the only one that can make the bourgeoisie tremble again!

ICC 4.4.22 

1) In China, the pandemic is making a strong comeback (as shown in Shanghai, in particular). It is also far from being under control in the rest of the world.

2) Of course, it is true that from Hitler to Assad, via Hussein, Milosevic, Gaddafi or Kim Jong-un, the “leaders” of the enemy class frequently suffer from serious psychological disorders.

Rubric: 

Editorial

Capitalism is war, war on capitalism! (International leaflet)

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We publish here the leaflet that the ICC began distributing from 28 February 2022. We have made an effort to make it accessible in the languages spoken where the ICC does not have any militants, and a certain number of contacts have helped us in this work. So it’s in no small measure thanks to the translations done by these contacts that the leaflet can be read in the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, Turkish, Dutch, Portuguese, Greek, Russian, Hindi, Farsi, Korean, Japanese, Tagalog, Chinese, Hungarian, Finnish and Arab. For a certain number of these languages, the leaflet can be downloaded as a PDF from our site to assist those who want to print it and distribute it at meetings or demonstrations.

Europe has entered into war. It is not the first time since the second world butchery of 1939-45. At the beginning of the 1990s, war ravaged the former Yugoslavia, causing 140,000 deaths, with huge mass massacres of civilians, in the name of “ethnic cleansing” as in Srebrenica, in July 1995, where 8,000 men and teenagers were murdered in cold blood. The war that has just broken out with the offensive of the Russian armies against Ukraine is not as deadly for the moment, but no one knows yet how many victims it will ultimately claim. As of now, it is much larger in scale than the war in ex-Yugoslavia. Today, it is not militias or small states that are fighting each other. The current war is between the two largest states in Europe, with populations of 150 million and 45 million respectively, and with huge armies being deployed: 700,000 troops in Russia and over 250,000 in Ukraine.

Moreover, if the great powers had already been involved in the confrontations in the former Yugoslavia, it was in an indirect way, or by participating in “intervention forces”, under the aegis of the United Nations. Today, it is not only Ukraine that Russia is confronting, but all the Western countries grouped in NATO which, although they are not directly involved in the fighting, have taken significant economic sanctions against this country at the same time as they have begun to send arms to Ukraine.

Thus, the war that has just begun is a dramatic event of the utmost importance, first and foremost for Europe, but also for the whole world. It has already claimed thousands of lives among soldiers on both sides and among civilians. It has thrown hundreds of thousands of refugees onto the roads. It will cause further increases in the price of energy and cereals, which will lead to increased cold and hunger, while in most countries of the world, the exploited, the poorest, have already seen their living conditions collapse in the face of inflation. As always, it is the class that produces most of the social wealth, the working class, that will pay the highest price for the warlike actions of the masters of the world.

This war, this tragedy, cannot be separated from the whole world situation of the last two years: the pandemic, the worsening of the economic crisis, the multiplication of ecological catastrophes. It is a clear manifestation of a world sinking into barbarism.

The lies of war propaganda

Every war is accompanied by massive campaigns of lies. In order to make the population, and particularly the exploited class, accept the terrible sacrifices that are asked of them, the sacrifice of their lives for those who are sent to the front, the mourning of their mothers, their partners, their children, the terror of the civilian population, the deprivations and the worsening of exploitation, it is necessary to fill their heads with the ideology of the ruling class.

Putin's lies are crude, and mirror those of the Soviet regime in which he began his career as an officer in the KGB, the political police and spy organisation. He claims to be conducting a “special military operation” to help the people of Donbass who are victims of “genocide” and he forbids the media, on pain of sanctions, to use the word “war”. According to him, he wants to free Ukraine from the “Nazi regime” that rules it. It is true that the Russian-speaking populations of the East are being persecuted by Ukrainian nationalist militias, often nostalgic for the Nazi regime, but there is no genocide.

The lies of Western governments and media are usually more subtle. Not always: the United States and its allies, including the very “democratic” United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and... Ukraine (!) sold us the 2003 intervention in Iraq in the name of the - totally invented - threat of “weapons of mass destruction” in the hands of Saddam Hussein. An intervention that resulted in several hundred thousand deaths and two million refugees among the Iraqi population, and several tens of thousands killed among the coalition soldiers.

Today, the “democratic” leaders and the Western media are feeding us the fable of the fight between the “evil ogre” Putin and the “good little boy” Zelensky. We have known for a long time that Putin is a cynical criminal. Besides, he has the looks to match. Zelensky benefits from not having such a criminal record as Putin and from having been, before entering politics, a popular comic actor (with a large fortune in tax havens as a result). But his comedic talents have now allowed him to enter his new role of warlord with brio, a role which includes forbidding men between 18 and 60 from accompanying their families trying to take refuge abroad, and calling on Ukrainians to be killed for ‘the Fatherland’, i.e. for the interests of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie and oligarchs. Because whatever the colour of the governing parties, whatever the tone of their speeches, all the national states are above all defenders of the interests of the exploiting class, of the national bourgeoisie, both against the exploited and against competition from other national bourgeoisies.

In all war propaganda, each state presents itself as the “victim of aggression” that must defend itself against the “aggressor”. But since all states are in reality brigands, it is pointless to ask which brigand fired first in a settlement of accounts. Today, Putin and Russia have fired first, but in the past, NATO, under US tutelage, has integrated into its ranks many countries which, before the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the Soviet Union, were dominated by Russia. By initiating the war, the brigand Putin aims to recover some of his country's past power, notably by preventing Ukraine from joining NATO.

In reality, since the beginning of the 20th century, permanent war, with all the terrible suffering it engenders, has become inseparable from the capitalist system, a system based on competition between companies and between states, where commercial warfare leads to armed warfare, where the worsening of its economic contradictions, of its crisis, stirs up ever more warlike conflicts. A system based on profit and the fierce exploitation of the producers, in which the workers are forced to pay in blood as well as in sweat.

Since 2015, global military spending has been rising sharply. This war has just brutally accelerated this process. As a symbol of this deadly spiral: Germany has started to deliver arms to Ukraine, a historic first since the Second World War; for the first time, the European Union is also financing the purchase and delivery of arms to Ukraine; and Russian President Vladimir Putin has openly threatened to use nuclear weapons to prove his determination and destructive capabilities.

How can we end war?

No one can predict exactly how the current war will develop, even though Russia has a much stronger army than Ukraine. Today, there are many demonstrations around the world, and in Russia itself, against Russia's intervention. But it is not these demonstrations that will put an end to the hostilities. History has shown that the only force that can put an end to capitalist war is the exploited class, the proletariat, the direct enemy of the bourgeois class. This was the case when the workers of Russia overthrew the bourgeois state in October 1917 and the workers and soldiers of Germany revolted in November 1918, forcing their government to sign the armistice. If Putin was able to send hundreds of thousands of soldiers to be killed against Ukraine, if many Ukrainians today are ready to give their lives for the “defence of the Fatherland”, it is largely because in this part of the world the working class is particularly weak. The collapse in 1989 of the regimes that claimed to be “socialist” or “working class” dealt a very brutal blow to the world working class. This blow affected the workers who had fought hard from 1968 onwards and during the 1970s in countries like France, Italy and the United Kingdom, but even more so those in the so-called “socialist” countries, like those in Poland who fought massively and with great determination in August 1980, forcing the government to renounce repression and meet their demands.

It is not by demonstrating “for peace”, it is not by choosing to support one country against another that we can bring real solidarity to the victims of war, the civilian populations and the soldiers of both sides, proletarians in uniform transformed into cannon fodder. The only solidarity consists in denouncing ALL the capitalist states, ALL the parties that call for rallying behind this or that national flag, ALL those who lure us with the illusion of peace and “good relations” between peoples. And the only solidarity that can have a real impact is the development of massive and conscious workers’ struggles everywhere in the world. And in particular, these struggles must become conscious of the fact that they constitute a preparation for the overthrow of the system responsible for the wars and all the barbarity that increasingly threatens humanity: the capitalist system.

Today, the old slogans of the workers' movement, which appeared in the Communist Manifesto of 1848, are more than ever on the agenda: Workers have no fatherland! Workers of all countries, unite!

For the development of the class struggle of the international proletariat!

International Communist Current, 28.2.22

www.internationalism.org [30]

email: [email protected] [31]

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Public meetings

Come and discuss the ideas in this leaflet at one of the online public meetings the ICC will be holding over the next two weeks. In English: March 5 at 11am and on March 6 at 6pm (UK times). Write to our email for details.

Rubric: 

Imperialist conflict in Ukraine

War in Ukraine and the Middle East: Two expressions of the horror and irrational madness of capitalism!

  • 315 reads

New Introduction, 2 October 2024

Since this article was written, recent events, and in particular developments in the Middle East, clearly confirm the article’s prediction that we are seeing the growing escalation of the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The war has already expanded to Yemen with Israeli strikes against Houthi-held ports and to Syria with an attack on Damascus. Israel's offensive against Hezbollah, which began with an ultra-sophisticated, and yet entirely barbaric operation concocted by Mossad in the heart of Beirut, simultaneously detonating nearly 500 pirated telephone pagers and walkie-talkie bombs, has been followed by intense aerial bombardment of the Lebanese capital, killing hundreds of people, including many children, injuring more than 1,800 civilians by 26 September, and forcing up to a million people to flee their homes. Reports indicate that a hundred thousand of these have been seeking refuge in Syria, which already contains numerous refugee camps where basic supplies are virtually non-existent.

On September 27, another coup for the Israeli state: the killing of Hezbollah’s supreme leader, Hassan Nasrallah. These and other blows against Hezbollah clearly benefit the Netanyahu regime, which can boast of definite ‘victories’ in contrast to the deadly quagmire in Gaza.  Meanwhile, an Israeli ground offensive in southern Lebanon has already begun, with commando raids on Hezbollah bases, backed up by air power. The Israeli offensive has deprived Hezbollah of a considerable part of its current leadership, but it is a complete illusion to think that you can eliminate terrorism by wiping out a few commanders. The war in Lebanon will not have a quick and easy outcome for Israel, as it already discovered in 2006.

Hezbollah has vowed revenge and continues to call for the destruction of the State of Israel, while Tehran in turn launches a rain of ballistic missiles on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in retaliation, which will once again provoke an escalation in Israel’s response. The two sides are using the current focus on the forthcoming American elections, their uncertain outcome and the proximity of this deadline, to intensify their provocative policies, turning a deaf ear to the injunctions of both the United States and the European Union who have called for an immediate ceasefire. The local powers are clearly rushing pell-mell into an escalating and irrational military situation that threatens to set the whole region on fire. At the same time, the conflict is revealing the contradictory stance of the US, which continues to pour weapons into Israel and supplies intelligence to some of its attacks, for example the Israeli raid on Yemen. Washington has an interest in the weakening of Iran and its allies in the region - which would also be a blow against Russia, since Iran is one of its main arms suppliers. Both the US and Britain have played a direct role in Israel’s response to Iran’s missile attack (intelligence and anti-missile fire from the US Mediterranean fleet). But at the same time, Washington does not want the whole situation to spiral out of control; and Netanyahu’s growing defiance of US appeals is a further sign of the diminution of America’s authority on a global scale. 

To a lesser degree, but just as significantly, the war between Russia and Ukraine is becoming entrenched and bogged down. Zelensky has recently made a speech at the UN in an attempt to convince the ‘international community’ to support Ukraine more effectively, hypocritically presenting a ‘plan for peace’, when in fact he is admitting in a barely disguised way that it is a question of putting pressure on Moscow in order to ‘force Russia to make peace’ under the new conditions imposed by Ukraine. This only provoked a virulent reaction from Putin, who declared that ‘he would never accept peace under duress’ and reaffirmed that Moscow's conditions for a cease-fire were always the same: recognition of the regions conquered by Russia at the start of the war, and ruling out Ukraine's adherence to NATO. These terms are in turn totally unacceptable to Kiev. Moreover, Britain has dispatched long-distance Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine, and seems to have changed its stance on allowing them to be used against targets inside Russia. If the US, Germany and others in the west give the green light to their use in Russia, this would constitute yet another step towards the abyss. In response, Putin has changed the protocol for the use of nuclear weapons, which now allows their ‘asymmetric’ use in the case of a threat to crucial installations on Russian soil, even by a non-nuclear power. As a result of all this, the prospect of reopening negotiations between the two main protagonists in the conflict is once again being buried. On the ground, on the other hand, the fighting and mutual destruction are not only intensifying but once again threatening to take an even more menacing turn with the resumption of bombing raids around the nuclear reactors at the Zaporizhzha power station, while each side blames the other for playing with fire.

These wars show that when it comes to playing with fire, the entire ruling class of this barbaric system is guilty as charged.

******************************************************************************************************************************


This summer, murderous tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East escalated in a destructive spiral whose outcome could not be clearer: nothing profitable will ever come out of these wars for any of the belligerents.

A never-ending escalation of war
The Russian army's advances in Eastern Ukraine have been met by new incursions, this time directly onto Russian soil, by the Ukrainian army in the Kursk region. A further step has been taken, threatening the population and the world with an extension of the conflict and an even deadlier confrontation. All the belligerents are caught up in an extremely dangerous spiral: Zelensky, for example, is just waiting to be able to strike Russia more deeply thanks to the European and American missiles he is receiving. And this only fuels the Kremlin's murderous headlong rush, with the strikes in Poltava adding 55 deaths to the endless list of victims.

For its part, Belarus is still a force that could play an active part in the conflict: with the Ukrainian raid on Kursk, this possibility has increased. On the common border between Belarus and Ukraine, the Lukashenko government has stationed a third of its army, and its June military exercises were a reminder that it has Russian nuclear weapons on its territory.

The same risk of extending the vicious cycle of war is present in Poland, which has once again expressed its concern by keeping its troops on alert. Although NATO, of which Poland is a member, has officially refused to send troops, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk spoke at the end of March of a “pre-war era”’.

In the Middle East, the daily ignominy in Gaza has been compounded by the Israeli army's offensive in the West Bank and its intervention in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah targets, in a totally irrational forward flight. The provocative assassination of the head of Hamas in Teheran has only led to his replacement by a new leader who is even more extremist and bloodthirsty, and has lit another fuse in the regional powder keg. All this, of course, has given Iran and its allies new pretexts for getting even more involved in the conflict, stepping up their crimes and provocations.

While the hypocritical ‘ceasefire’ talks were being held in Doha in mid-August, the massacres and destruction continued unabated. Netanyahu never ceases to torpedo any attempt at a diplomatic opening, the better to accentuate his scorched-earth policy, piling up corpses in an attempt to save his skin. Each side has done nothing but increase the carnage in order to influence the negotiations.
Netanyahu and Hamas, Putin and Zelensky, and the imperialist powers that actively support them - all these imperialist vultures are caught up in an unstoppable logic of endless and increasingly destructive confrontations. This only confirms that the war spiral of capitalism in full decomposition has lost all economic rationality and is tending to escape the control of its direct protagonists and all the imperialist powers involved.

Accelerating decomposition exacerbates conflicts
These conflicts illustrate the enormous weight of the decomposition of the capitalist system, the irreversible acceleration of which is increasingly threatening to destroy humanity: through their duration, through the political impasse they reveal, through their irrationality and their scorched-earth logic. If world war is not on the agenda, because of the generalised domination of every man for himself, the instability of alliances which now characterise international relations, the intensification and progressive extension of conflicts can only lead in the long term to ever more destruction and chaos.

The non-existence of imperialist blocs ready for world war (as were the Western bloc and the Eastern bloc during the Cold War) ultimately generates even more instability: as there is no longer a common enemy or bloc discipline, each faction now acts for its own objectives, which leads them more easily to confrontation in a struggle of each against all, hindering the action of others and making it increasingly difficult to control their policies.
It is because of this tendency that the United States, while maintaining its support for NATO, sees its own factions fighting over policy, both in Ukraine and in Gaza. While the Biden administration proposed maintaining aid to its allies, the Republicans sought to limit it, in Congress initially freezing $60 billion in support for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel, before finally giving in and agreeing to release them. These fractures are accentuating the United States' difficulty in imposing its hegemony on the world. It is losing more and more control over its policies and its authority over the protagonists in conflicts.

And it is in this context that the growing polarisation between the two great powers, China and the United States, is adding fuel to the fire. While the prospect of a full-scale war between these two powers is out of the question for the time being, tensions are constant and the risk of a regional confrontation over Taiwan is only increasing. China is continuing its military exercises near and around the island, continuing and stepping up its military provocations in the China Sea, albeit cautiously, and increasing its intimidation, particularly of the Philippines and Japan. The United States, very concerned, is raising its voice and reaffirming its support for its threatened allies, while also stepping up its provocations. The situation is becoming increasingly uncontrollable and unpredictable. The risk of new conflagrations is constantly increasing.

Proletarians remain the main victims
Proletarians are always the hardest hit, whether directly in the conflict zones or away from the frontlines as a result of the attacks linked to the war economy. In war zones, they are the victims of bombardments, suffer restrictions and have to endure terror, horrors and massacres. When they are not being exploited in factories, mines or offices, the bourgeoisie uses them as cannon fodder. In Ukraine, the government recruits any man between the ages of 25 and 60 at its own discretion, either directly by abduction or with the lure of a higher salary than that of a civilian job. In addition to compulsory enlistment, the bourgeoisie takes advantage of the workers' miserable conditions to pay for their blood and their lives. All this was only possible thanks to intense nationalist propaganda, vast ideological campaigns and state-planned conditioning: “War is methodical, organised, gigantic murder. In order to get normal men to carry out systematic murder, it is necessary [...] to produce an appropriate intoxication. This has always been the usual method used by belligerents. The bestiality of thought and feeling must correspond to the bestiality of practice; it must prepare and accompany it”[1].  This is why the working class in Ukraine, Russia and the Middle East is currently unable to react, and will find it very difficult to do so in the face of the  “intoxication”’ to which it is being subjected.

It is true that Netanyahu's government is increasingly unpopular, and the news of the latest Hamas killing of Israeli hostages has provoked huge demonstrations, as more and more Israelis recognise that the government's stated aim of freeing the hostages and destroying Hamas are mutually contradictory. But the demonstrations, even when they demand a ceasefire, remain within the bounds of nationalism and bourgeois democracy and contain no momentum towards a proletarian response to the war.

The proletariat of the Western countries, through its experience of class struggle, particularly the sophisticated traps imposed by bourgeois domination, remains the principal antidote to the destructive spiral. Through his struggles against the effects of the war economy, both budget cuts and galloping inflation, it is laying the foundations for his future assaults on capitalism.


Tatlin/WH, 5 September 2024
 

 

 

[1] Rosa Luxemburg, The Crisis of Social Democracy (1915).

Rubric: 

Inter-imperialist conflict

Russia-Ukraine crisis: war is capitalism’s way of life

  • 427 reads
[32]

Putin justifies the military build-up on the border with Ukraine by denouncing the “aggressive” intentions of NATO and western powers. The political and media mouthpieces in the western “democracies” call for standing firm against Russia’s “aggressive” threats to the sovereignty of the Ukraine, pointing to the intervention of Russian special forces to help “restore order” in Kazakhstan as further proof of Putin’s “empire building” (or rebuilding) ambitions.

These are the mutual accusation of capitalist, imperialist powers, and the position of our class, of the workers who “have no fatherland”, is to refuse to enter into these quarrels, still less to make any sacrifice, economic or physical, on behalf of their exploiters, whether American, European, Russian or Ukrainian.

But in order to expose the propaganda being poured out on both sides, the task of revolutionaries is not only to denounce all the lies they spew forth, but also to provide a coherent analysis, to dig down to the roots of this sharpening of inter-imperialist tensions.

Fall of the empires

Prior to 1989, Moscow stood at the head of the second world power, the leader of an entire imperialist bloc. Ukraine and many of the other “independent” republics that surround the Russian Federation were part of the USSR, the so-called “Soviet Union”. But in 1989-91, the culmination of a long economic and political crisis whose origins we have analysed elsewhere[1], the eastern bloc collapsed and the USSR itself was swept away in the tsunami.

One of the foremost means of this unprecedented victory for the US-led bloc was the policy of encircling the USSR, by forging an alliance with China, using Turkey as a missile base, seeking a “Pax Americana” throughout the Middle East. This was accompanied by an intense arms race which accelerated the bankruptcy of the USSR. The increasingly beleaguered Russian bloc tried to break the circle, notably by invading Afghanistan in 1979, but this move towards access to the “warm seas” backfired as Russian troops got bogged down in an unwinnable war against Islamist forces supported by the US and its allies. And at more or less the same time, the mass strikes of the working class in Poland showed the USSR’s rulers how little they could count on the workers in their own bloc in any further military adventures, above all in Europe itself.

The USA thus emerged as the one and only “superpower” and Bush Senior proclaimed the advent of a “New World Order” of peace, prosperity, and democracy, while US military strategists planned for “Full Spectrum Dominance” and the “New American Century”. But within a few years, the USA’s triumph proved to be hollow. With the common enemy to the East laid low, the western bloc itself began to splinter, and the principle of “every man for himself” more and more replaced the old bloc discipline – an expression, in international relations, of the dawn of a new and terminal phase in the long decline of the capitalist system. This process was graphically illustrated by the Balkans war in the early 90s, where the USA’s most “loyal” allies found themselves at odds, even supporting different factions in the bloody massacres that accompanied the break-up of Yugoslavia.

The American response to this threat to its hegemony was to try to reassert its authority by calling on its overwhelming military superiority – with some success in the first Gulf War of 1991, but with much more negative results from the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. Now it was the turn of the US to get its feet stuck in unwinnable conflicts with Islamist gangs. Instead of blocking the tendency towards every man for himself, these adventures accelerated the centrifugal tendencies throughout the strategically vital Middle East region. In particular the USA’s main enemy in the region - Iran – profited from the mess in neighbouring Iraq, advancing its pawns in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere.

At the same time, this new world disorder created a space for China -which had already been benefitting from the massive western economic investments aimed at finding a way out of the economic recessions of the 70s and 80s – to emerge as a real imperialist rival to the US.

Russia’ imperialist revival

After a short period – the Yeltsin years – in which Russia seemed ready to sell itself to the highest bidder, Russian imperialism, steered by the ex-KGB man Putin, began to reassert itself, counting on its only real assets: the huge military machine inherited from the Cold War period, and its considerable energy reserves, especially in natural gas, which could be used to blackmail more energy-dependent countries. And even if could not directly confront its imperialist rivals, it could do its best to worsen divisions among them, notably through the judicious use of cyber warfare and black propaganda. An obvious example was its efforts to weaken the EU through supporting populist forces in the Brexit referendum, in France, Eastern Europe and so on. In the US its social media trolls supported the Trump candidacy, and as president Trump proved to be, to say the least, soft on Russian ambitions and actions – partly because Trump’s financial and possibly sexual escapades had opened himself up to Russian pressure, but also because there was a sizeable faction of the US bourgeoisie which was in favour of wooing Russia as a counter-weight to China.

Russia’s imperialist revival passed through a number of stages – domestically, by ending the Yeltsin sell-off and imposing a much tighter control over the national economy, but above all through military actions: in Chechnya, which from 1999 through the 2000s was pounded  to rubble as a warning against future attempts to secede from the Russian Federation; in Georgia in 2008, where Russian forces intervened in support of the secession of South Ossetia and to stymie Georgia’s move towards NATO; the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the culmination of a Russian reaction to the “Orange Revolution” in the Ukraine and the emergence of a pro-western government which sought membership of NATO; and in Syria, where Russian arms and forces have been decisive in preventing the fall of Assad and the possible loss of Russia’s naval base in Tartus. In the 1970s and 80s, the US had largely succeeded in driving Russian influence out of the Middle East (eg in Egypt, Afghanistan…). Now Russia has returned and it is the USA which has been pulling out. In many of these military actions Russia has enjoyed the open or tacit support of China – not because there are no imperialist divisions between the two countries, but because China has seen the benefit of policies which weaken the hold of the US.

America’s imperialist offensive has not gone away

However, despite Russia’s recovery and the many set-backs for the US, the latter has not given up all the gains it has made in the countries bordering Russia; in many ways the old policy of encirclement continues. The expansion of NATO has been the spearhead of this policy, drawing in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Slovenia – the majority of which were formerly part of the Russian bloc. All of this has taken place over the last two decades. So it’s hardly surprising that the Russian state feels threatened by the efforts to pull Georgia and the Ukraine into NATO. One of Putin’s key demands to “defuse” the Ukrainian crisis includes a promise that Ukraine will never join NATO and that foreign troops or weapons be removed from countries that joined NATO since 1997.  

In addition to which, the US has also given maximum backing to various “colour revolutions”, notably in the Ukraine, seeking to channel protests against economic misery and despotic pro-Russian rulers into support for pro-EU and pro-US political forces.

Russia thus remains essentially on the defensive in this situation. However, Moscow also knows that the US is facing major difficulties itself, preoccupied by the rise of China and anxious not to be engaged on too many fronts at the same time, as sharply illustrated by the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is thus a “good” moment for Putin to rattle the sabres and, as ever, this can help to reinforce his strong-man image at home, especially when his popularity has been waning in the wake of corruption scandals, increasingly repressive policies against opposition politicians and journalists, and the country’s mounting economic difficulties.

None of this means that Ukraine is an “innocent party” in this military build-up. Ukraine holds yearly joint military exercises with NATO allies and is one of 26 countries participating in NATO’s Defender-Europe 2021, the US Army-led military operations “to build readiness and interoperability between U.S., NATO and partner militaries” across Europe (See: “Defender-Europe 21 Fact Sheet”).

Kiev has taken steps to upgrade its military assets and equipment to meet NATO membership criteria. In June 2020, Ukraine even became a NATO “enhanced opportunity partner,” deepening cooperation with the military alliance.

In the beginning of 2021 Ukraine’s Foreign Minister announced that the National Security and Defence Council has approved a strategy aimed at retaking and reintegrating Crimea into the country. Zelensky’s administration sought “full Ukrainian sovereignty” over not just Crimea but that of the port city of Sevastopol as well.

War is capitalism’s way of life

Are we heading towards a direct conflict between Russia and the US over the Ukraine, even a third world war, as some of the more alarmist reports suggest?[2]

Neither the US or Russia are part of a stable military bloc which has the discipline to mobilise for a global war. And neither has an interest in an immediate, direct military clash. Despite the Ukraine’s considerable agricultural and industrial assets[3], invading and annexing the Ukraine has been compared to a python swallowing a cow: invading it might be one thing, holding onto it quite another. And as we have said, America has more pressing concerns on the imperialist front, hence Biden’s rather ineffectual warning that bad things will happen if Russia invades, and his commitment to high level diplomatic talks.

We should not forget, however, that a low-intensity conflict with Russian separatist forces in the east of the Ukraine has continued despite various cease-fire attempts. Even if Russia stops short of an outright invasion it may be pushed to step up its backing for such separatist forces, or nibbling away at Ukraine’s integrity as a state on other fronts. And even if the last thing the “west” wants is boots on the ground of Ukraine, it is not entirely powerless. It can continue to provide arms and training to the Ukrainian miliary, and it can also respond with some damaging economic measures against Russia, such as a full blocking of major Russian state banks and investment agencies, and new sanctions to include mining, metals, shipping and insurance[4].

The phase of decomposition which world capitalism entered thirty years ago is marked by chaotic military conflicts and a growing loss of control by the ruling class. Prior to this, during the Cold War, the major planetary powers suspended the nuclear Sword of Damocles over humanity’s head. It is still hanging there in a world which no longer obeys the diktats of coherent blocs, and where more countries than ever before are armed with weapons of mass destruction. In short, whatever, the “rational” calculations of the players on the imperialist chess-board, we cannot rule out sudden outbreaks, escalations, or dives into irrational destructiveness. War remains the way of life of this decadent system, and the fact that the powers-that-be are ready to gamble with the life of humanity and the planet itself is already a reason for condemning this system and fighting for a global human community which has consigned national states and borders to the museum of antiquities.

Amos

Rubric: 

Imperialist conflicts

Ukraine: Two years of imperialist confrontation, two years of barbarism and destruction

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On 24 February 2022, Russia launched a "special operation" against Ukraine, intended as a Blitzkrieg[1] from the north and east, with the intention of changing the government in Kyiv and occupying the Donbas, Zaporijjia and Kherson. In response, the Ukrainian state declared the military mobilisation of the population and a democratic campaign was launched among the major Western powers to support the defence of Ukraine. All this suggested that this was just a "limited" operation, like the occupation of Crimea in 2014.

Today, on the other hand, the situation is more like what Rosa Luxemburg described at the beginning of her Junius Pamphlet on the First World War: “The trains full of reservists are no longer accompanied by virgins fainting from pure jubilation. They no longer greet the people from the windows of the train with joyous smiles… The cannon fodder loaded onto trains in August and September is moldering in the killing fields of Belgium, the Vosges, and Masurian Lakes where the profits are springing up like weeds… Cities become piles of ruins; villages become cemeteries; countries, deserts; populations are beggared; churches, horse stalls. Soiled, dishonoured, drenched in blood, covered in filth; this is what bourgeois society looks like, this is what it is".

The war in Ukraine displays all the characteristics of imperialist war in the decadence of capitalism, and in particular in its period of decomposition.

War tends to become permanent and thus expresses the tendency of war to become the way of life of capitalism.

Since the First World War (4 years), and especially after the Second World War (5 years), war has not ceased, causing far more death and destruction overall than in the two world wars: Korean War (3 years; although it was falsely halted by an armistice signifying a temporary suspension and not a termination of war); Vietnam (20 years); Iran-Iraq (8 years); Afghanistan (20 years); Iraq War (8 years); Angola War (13 years); 1st and 2nd Congo War (1 year and 5 years)... Today, there are an estimated 183 armed conflicts in the world since the end of the Second World War.

The war in Ukraine has been going on for almost two years[2] and is now in a state of stagnation following the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, which can only be a prelude to further escalation. Indeed, since the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014, the war in Donetsk has not ceased. But beyond that, through the clash between NATO's extension to Moscow's doorstep and the Russian Federation's resistance to this pressure, the confrontation is laying the foundations for persistent and escalating fighting: "Ukraine has built an impressive fighting force with tens of billions of dollars' worth of aid, extensive training, and intelligence support from the West. The Ukrainian armed forces will be able to hold at risk any areas under Russian occupation. Further, Kyiv will maintain the capability to strike Russia itself, as it has demonstrated consistently over the past year​. Of course, the Russian military will also have the capacity to threaten Ukrainian security. Although its armed forces have suffered significant casualties and equipment losses that will take years to recover from, they are still formidable. And as they demonstrate daily, even in their current sorry state, they can cause significant death and destruction for Ukrainian military forces and civilian alike".[3]

The war in Ukraine also confirms the trend towards greater direct involvement of the central countries of capitalism in imperialist warfare. Indeed, this war signifies the new return of war to Europe since 1945, already at work in the Balkan war of the 1990s. It also pits Europe's two largest countries against each other, including the world's second largest nuclear power.

What's more, this war directly involves the major European powers[4] and the United States, which are helping to finance it and send weapons and military training[5] . So it's hardly surprising that this war is raising the spectre of a world war:

"Before the Russian invasion, many believed that the wars between the great powers of the 21st century, if they were to take place, would not resemble those of the past. They would be fought with a new generation of advanced technologies, including autonomous weapons systems. They would take place in space and cyberspace; the presence of soldiers on the front lines would probably not matter much. Instead, the West had to admit that this was a new war between states on European soil, fought by large armies over territories of several square kilometres. And this is just one of the many ways in which the invasion of Russia is reminiscent of the two world wars. Like those wars, this one was fuelled by nationalism and unrealistic expectations of how easy it would be to overwhelm the enemy. Fighting took place both in civilian areas and on the front lines, ravaging towns and driving people from their homes. The war consumed enormous resources and the governments involved were forced to call on conscripts and, in the case of Russia, mercenaries. The conflict has led to a search for new and more lethal weapons, with the risk of dangerous escalation. This situation is also felt in many other countries".[6]

A total war

Another characteristic of wars in decadence (and all the more so in the current final phase of decomposition) is that they require the mobilisation of all the nation's resources and the enrolment of the entire population at the front or in the rear. The media insisted that in both Russia and Ukraine, while the war was going on at the front, life in the rear continued as normal in Moscow or Kyiv. This is only half the truth. It is true that, particularly in Russia, it was mainly Wagner mercenaries and the Kadyrovtsis who were sent to the front[7] , and that conscription has for the moment carefully avoided places where the proletariat is concentrated: "The Kremlin has had disproportionate recourse to recruiting soldiers from Russia's poorest regions, made up of a large population of ethnic minorities, including those from formerly rebellious republics such as Chechnya, and provinces such as Buryatia and Tuva. In Tuva, for example, one in every 3,300 adults died fighting in Ukraine (compared to Moscow, where the figure is 1 in every 480,000 adults)".[8]

It is also true that it is necessary, as far as possible, to maintain production: in Ukraine, for example, companies have the right to 'save' up to 50% of their managers and skilled workers from conscription (in return, they make it easier to recruit the other 50% by threatening them with dismissal) and that both governments have an interest in maintaining a semblance of 'normality' at the back.

But the war was above all a total war, with barbarity raging on the front lines and among the civilian population. From the very first day of the war, Zelenski forbade adult men of fighting age to leave the country, but this did not prevent hundreds of thousands of them from accompanying the 8 million Ukrainian refugees abroad and tens of thousands from fleeing the mobilisation clandestinely. In Russia too, since the partial mobilisation of September 2022, the government has been able to enlist any citizen of fighting age, which immediately led to around 700,000 men fleeing the country, and no doubt more later.

On the front line, "Western intelligence agencies have estimated that during some of the heaviest fighting, Russia has recorded an average of more than 800 deaths and injuries per day, and Ukrainian officials have acknowledged peaks of 200 to 500 casualties per day on the Ukrainian side. Russia has already lost more soldiers in this war than in ten years of fighting in Afghanistan".[9]

According to official American sources, in mid-August this year the New York Times estimated the number of dead, wounded and maimed in the war at around 500,000, including 70,000 dead and 120,000 seriously wounded on the Ukrainian side[10] , where more reliable data is available. According to Ukrainian sources, Russian troops are being re-supplied by released convicts who have been blackmailed into going to war. The officers despised them and sent them to die on the front line without bothering about the wounded, let alone the dead.

As for the civilian population, since the first Russian assault, mass graves of murder and torture have been discovered in the suburbs of Kyiv, then in Bucha, with evidence of hundreds of summary executions and rapes of women and children, which have been exploited to the hilt in order to boost anti-Russian war propaganda. The incessant bombardments are destroying people's homes and basic infrastructure, and causing an incessant number of casualties. Entire towns, such as Mariupol, have been completely destroyed. The rain of missiles does not stop, not only on the eastern front, but also in Kyiv. Railway stations (Kramatorsk, April 2022), cafés and restaurants, hospitals, maternity wards, power stations and even nuclear power stations like Zaporijjia have been seriously threatened.

Every day, tens of thousands of shells are fired by both sides[11] , sowing terror and destruction when they explode, but also when they fail to explode, because they remain a threat that can continue to kill and maim. The cluster bombs supplied by the United States in recent months, as their name suggests, explode at the same time as they seed the whole area with explosives. Ukraine is now one of the countries with the most landmines in the world: anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, which explode when stepped on, but also when cars or buses carrying fleeing civilians pass by. Retreating Russian troops lay mines all over the place and set traps by leaving explosives on corpses in abandoned houses, and the Ukrainian army mines the front line to prevent the Russians from advancing. Mines are dropped by missiles or drones everywhere:

"Some 174,000 square kilometres of Ukraine are suspected of being contaminated by mines and unexploded ordnance. This is an area the size of Florida, or around 30% of Ukrainian territory. This estimate takes into account areas occupied by Russia since its full-scale invasion, as well as areas reclaimed from the Kharkov region in the east to the outskirts of Kyiv, such as Bucha. According to Human Rights Watch, mines have been identified in 11 of Ukraine's 27 regions.”[12]

Not to mention the ecological consequences of the war, which we have already referred to: "Chemical factories were bombed in a particularly vulnerable country. Ukraine occupies 6% of European territory, but contains 35% of its biodiversity, with some 150 protected species and numerous wetlands".[13]

This is the image recently painted by journalists in Kryvyi Rih, a major industrial centre near Zaporijjia, the country's 7th largest city: "The queues outside the recruitment offices have disappeared. Today, everyone knows what the daily life of a soldier is like. It is no longer rare to see soldiers mutilated by the war on the outskirts of bus stations in medium-sized towns”.[14]

But the main victim of the war has been the working class. Workers' families were bombed in the rear and they were recruited from the factories to go to the front, subjected to blackmail for dismissal, rather like Russian convicts. What's more, once they were mobilised, they lost their wages, which they exchanged for the meagre monthly pay of 500 euros given to soldiers at the front. In addition, the state has abandoned insurance for the wounded and maimed. For those who remain at work, in July 2022 the Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) approved the suspension of most of the laws governing the labour code, arbitrarily granting freedom to company management in wage negotiation and dismissal.

The economy at the service of war

In the imperialist wars of decadence (and also of course in its current final phase of decomposition), war is not at the service of the economy, unlike in the ascendant period of capitalist expansion in the 19th century, when colonial wars enabled the global expansion of capitalism, or when national wars provided a framework for capitalist development. In the present period, the economy is at the service of war[15] and this is confirmed by the war in Ukraine, starting with Russia.

In his end-of-year interview, Mr Putin boasted of a 3.5% increase in production in Russia, but this figure largely reflects the increase in war production:

"The Kremlin is throwing the household furniture out of the window by increasing its military budget by 68% between now and 2024. The defence industry is preparing to rapidly supply the front line. An investigation by the Ukrainian media outlet Skhemy, based on satellite observations, shows the construction or expansion of several key factories in the Russian military-industrial system. In the aerospace sector, these include the Gorbunov factory in Kazan (production of Tu-16, Tu-22 and TU-160 bombers), the Irkutsk factory (Su-30 fighters) and the Ekaterinburg factory (engines and gearboxes for Mi-24 and Ka-52 military helicopters). Others, specialising in mechanical engineering at Doubna (Kh-22, Kh-55 and Kh-101 missiles) and Kronstadt (Orion and Helios military drones), as well as Kalashnikov (ammunition for Zala, Lancet and Italmas marauders), have also developed their industrial facilities".[16]

According to official figures, the population's income has fallen by 10% over the last decade, and the country's economic situation is reminiscent of that of the Stalinist USSR at the time of the collapse of the Eastern bloc, of which economic stagnation and backwardness were precisely a major cause:

"The country's economy is stagnant, with few sources of value other than the extraction and export of natural resources. The whole system is riddled with corruption and dominated by state-owned or state-controlled enterprises, all of which are inefficient, and international sanctions limit access to capital and technology. Russia struggles to develop, retain and attract talent; the state underfunds scientific research and bureaucratic mismanagement hampers technological innovation. As a result, Russia lags far behind the US and China on most indicators of scientific and technological development. Military spending has stagnated over the past four years and the population is expected to shrink by ten million by 2050."[17]

The war also had a major impact on the economies of the major European powers. The United States used the war, which it helped to start, not only to "bleed" Russia and make it more difficult to form an alliance with China[18] , but also to impose on the European powers its policy of sanctions against the Russian Federation and its financing of the war in Ukraine.

Up to now, we have taken stock of almost two years of this war without differentiating between the characteristics of wars in decadence or of their final phase of decomposition; but at this stage, there is an important difference to point out, namely the tendency towards "every man for himself", the difficulty of the United States in imposing discipline on its allies and, at the same time, the impossibility for the latter to free themselves from American tutelage, and therefore the impossibility of consolidating an imperialist bloc. What the media call the "West", as opposed to the "Global South", is not a continuation of the American bloc confronting the Eastern bloc during the Cold War, but a game of dupes in which each side defends its interests against the others; it is nothing less than what is actually happening in the "Global South" too.

At the start of the war, France and Germany in particular tried to maintain a dialogue with Putin and to avoid the US policy of dragging the Kremlin into a war of attrition; but in the end they had to comply with sanctions and the financing of the war. In total, the amount spent by the EU on military aid to Ukraine alone is estimated at €5 billion. Macron had to go from claiming that NATO was "brain-dead" to contributing around €3 billion to finance the war and send arms to Ukraine, not without resistance, because its military aid ranks fifth, even behind Finland or Slovakia.

But it is undoubtedly for Germany that the sanctions and the war have had the greatest impact: “Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, Europe imported 45% of its gas from Russia, with Germany particularly resistant to decades-long US warnings that such a dependence on a single ideologically hostile power was foolish. Duly, once the war started, Putin resorted to using gas supplies as a weapon of war. From June 2022, gas supplies through Nord Stream 1, the 745-mile pipeline from the Russian coast near St Petersburg to north-east Germany, were cut to 40% of normal. Russia first cited technical problems. By July, the supply had fallen further down to 20% with Gazprom blaming ‘routine maintenance and faulty equipment’. By late August, with gas prices spiraling, Nord Stream 1 was not transporting any gas at all.” [19] . Then there was the sabotage of NordStream 2, first politically by the EU, then by blowing it up[20] . Germany had to reorganise its energy sources, with threats of rationing. In retaliation, Scholz declared a Zitenwenden (change of era) in the country's security policy, meaning a policy of intensive rearmament. This policy is being followed by all EU countries, with a 30% increase in defence spending from February 2022.

For its part, the United States has spent around 250 billion dollars worldwide on armaments and financing the war, and the Biden administration is currently trying to save another 60 billion dollars at all costs. Nevertheless, the US government has benefited economically from the sanctions and energy cuts, which have enabled it to export its own resources.

At the international level, the blockade of grain exports from Ukraine (one of the world's four main grain producers) and of maritime traffic in the Black Sea have caused famines in Africa and, together with arms spending and other unproductive expenditure, have contributed to the rise in inflation, particularly in food prices. All this, in addition to the rise in energy prices and the considerable increase in military budgets, is being passed on to the workers in the form of sacrifices and a marked deterioration in their living conditions.

The irrationality of war in times of decomposition

Groups in the proletarian political milieu in the Bordigist (the various Internationalist Communist Parties) and Damenist (the Internationalist Communist Tendency) traditions defend the view that imperialist war allows the beginning of a new cycle of accumulation. However, at the end of the Second World War, the Gauche Communise de France, from which we descend, drew the conclusion that, in the decadence of capitalism, war only leads to the destruction of the productive forces:

"War was the indispensable means for capitalism to open up the possibilities of further development, at a time when these possibilities existed and could only be opened up by means of violence. In the same way, the collapse of the capitalist world, having historically exhausted all possibilities of development, finds in modern warfare, imperialist warfare, the expression of this collapse which, without opening up any possibilities of further development for production, merely engulfs the productive forces in the abyss and accumulates ruin upon ruin at an accelerating rate."[21]

And this war is full confirmation of that:

"Today, the war in Ukraine cannot have directly economic objectives. Neither for Russia, which launched hostilities on 24 February 2022, nor for the United States, which for more than two decades has taken advantage of Russia's weakening following the collapse of its empire in 1989 to push the extension of NATO right up to the borders of that country. If Russia succeeds in establishing its control over new parts of Ukraine, it will be faced with huge expenditure to rebuild the regions it is ravaging. What's more, in the long term, the economic sanctions being put in place by Western countries will further weaken Ukraine's already sluggish economy. On the Western side, these same sanctions will also have a considerable cost, not to mention the military aid to Ukraine, which already runs into tens of billions of dollars. In fact, the current war is yet another illustration of the ICC's analyses of the question of war in the period of decadence of capitalism, and more particularly in the phase of decomposition that constitutes the culmination of this decadence".[22]

Indeed, as Putin himself has just stated, "Ukraine is incapable of producing anything"; in fact, the Ukrainian economy was already very weak before the war. For example, after independence from the USSR in 1991, production fell by 60% and GNP per capita by 42%; with the exception of precisely the east - which is now the main theatre of war - Kyiv and the northern oblasts, the main production is agricultural. Today, infrastructure such as the Crimean bridge has been destroyed, entire towns are in ruins, and in some places that were major concentrations of workers, factories are now producing at only 25% of their capacity.

The situation in the energy production and supply sector is indicative of the state of the country. Four nuclear power stations have been shut down, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates the cost of destruction in this sector alone at 10 billion euros, which has plunged 12 million people into energy poverty: "Last winter, Ukraine suffered power cuts and heating cuts throughout the country. Hospitals were deprived of electricity or had to resort to their own generators. By April, Ukraine's electricity production capacity had been reduced by 51% compared to just before the Russian invasion, according to the UNDP".[23]

There is a shortage of basic manpower, particularly in technology and research, most of whose workers have fled the country or been conscripted to the front: "Many male professors and students have joined the army. Some 2,000 professors and researchers have been unable to continue their work. In some universities, 30% of professors have gone abroad or to the other side of the country. Sixty-three institutions are reporting a shortage of teaching staff".[24]

In these conditions, it is difficult to imagine a reconstruction which would initiate a new cycle of accumulation, and even less so in the perspective of a lasting installation of war in Ukraine. Imperialist war in the decadence of capitalism already presents, in itself, this aspect of permanent destruction as a way of life for capitalism; but in its phase of decomposition, and particularly in recent years, this irrationality takes on a higher, scorched-earth character on the part of the various imperialist parties.

In this war, Russia is destroying infrastructure and production and is in the process of exterminating the population of the territory it claims (the Donbass). While one of its main objectives was to prevent NATO's presence on its borders, on the one hand it has pushed Sweden and Finland to apply to join, and on the other, instead of Ukraine's "neutrality", it finds itself confronted with a militarised country armed to the teeth, equipped with the most modern technology supplied by all the NATO countries.

The United States, which pushed Putin to start the war in order to "bleed Russia dry" and weaken its possible alliance with China, is faced with the prospect of accepting a possible defeat by Ukraine (supported by NATO and primarily by the United States itself). This would mean weakening their image as the world's leading power in the eyes of their allies, or leading to an escalation of the war with unforeseeable consequences in the event of NATO's direct involvement in the conflict, or the use of nuclear weapons. At the same time, instead of the war being a show of force that would have imposed discipline on all its rivals and second- and third-rate powers, the United States is faced with war in the Middle East, Israel's defiant attitude and the possibility of other regional powers such as Iran becoming involved in the conflict. And while it has so far been able to assert its interests in Europe, the various EU powers have embarked on an arms race that may one day enable them to resist these pressures. This situation is not lost on American analysts:

"A prolonged conflict would keep the risk of escalation - either Russia's use of nuclear weapons or a war between NATO and Russia - at a high level of alert. Ukraine would become completely dependent militarily and economically on Western support, which would ultimately pose budgetary problems for Western countries and readiness problems for their armies. The global economic consequences would persist and the US would be unable to devote its resources to other priorities, while Russia's dependence on China would increase. A long war would also weaken Russia, but the benefits do not outweigh the costs."[25]

On the battlefield itself, this tendency towards irrationality is expressed in the tendency to reproduce on a small scale sieges such as Stalingrad during the Second World War or Verdun during the First World War[26] , as in Bakhmut or Mariupol, where, on the pretext of the more or less strategic value of the place, systematic destruction was carried out, with the attendant loss of life and injuries (in Bakhmut, it is estimated that hundreds of thousands were seriously injured and over 50,000 killed).

The situation of the working class

The Ukrainian working class has been very weakened by the deindustrialisation that followed the disintegration of the USSR and by the weight of the ideological campaigns that sought to drag it into the struggles between factions of the bourgeoisie during the "Orange Revolution"[27] (2004), the Euromaidan protests (late 2013) and the Crimean war (2014). The February declaration of war was not fought by workers' mobilisations, but by the mass flight of refugees. Although there have recently been women's demonstrations in Kyiv calling for the return of soldiers from the front, and the Zelenski government is having serious difficulties recruiting soldiers, we should not expect a workers' response to the war.

As far as Russia is concerned, despite the information blackout, it seems that the proletariat in the main industrial concentrations is suffering less directly from conscription and bombing, but more and more from the intensification of exploitation and repression in the workplace, as well as from the loss of purchasing power. Its response to the situation remains an unknown for the moment; but what is clear from the evidence so far is that it will need some time to mature.

It is therefore inappropriate to expect the proletariat of either of the two countries concerned to respond in such a way as to put an end to the war.

On the other hand, the current struggles of the world proletariat in the main countries are not the product of a protest against the war either. The world proletariat was able to stop the First World War, but its revolutionary struggle in Russia and Germany was not directly the product of a response to the war, but of the development of its struggles for demands and its consciousness in the face of the collapse of capitalism. As soon as the German bourgeoisie succeeded in separating the struggle against the war from the revolutionary struggle at the rear, “peace” was used against the revolution.

Today, since the summer of anger in Great Britain[28] , workers in the main countries have begun a dynamic of struggles in defence of their living conditions, confirmed in particular by the struggles against pension reform in France and the struggles in the United States (in the automobile, health and education sectors, etc.). Struggles have developed despite the war in Ukraine, and the involvement of various countries in financing and sending weapons to the war is beginning to fuel reflection on the relationship between sacrifice and war within the proletariat.

Hic Rhodes, 29.12.2023

 

[1] Blitzkrieg; German term for a rapid, energetic military campaign aimed at a clear victory that avoids the possibility of total war (Wikipedia).

[2] According to a study by the University of Uppsala (Sweden) based on conflicts between 1946 and 2021, 26% of wars between states end in less than a month, and 25% in a year; but it also shows that if the conflict lasts more than a year, it tends to drag on for at least a decade.

[3] “An Unwinnable War”, article by Samuel Charap, (RAND Corporation), published in Foreign Affairs Vol 102, Nº 4, July/August 2023. The author was a member of the US State Department's policy planning team during the Obama administration.

[4] “The bloc has provided military assistance to Ukraine - the first time that European institutions have directly provided military assistance (including lethal aid) to a state, on top of finally ending their resistance to getting involved militarily in support of a third state at war.", "'No turning back' How the Ukraine war has profoundly changed the EU”, the Guardian, September 30, 2023.

[5] 18 EU Member States train Ukrainian soldiers (according to the Guardian, idem).

[6] “How wars Don't End” article by Margaret MacMillan, Emeritus Professor of International History at Oxford, published in Foreign Affairs, July/August 2023.

[7] The soldiers of Chechen leader Kadyrov

[8] “The Treacherous Path to a Better Russia”, article by Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Frantz, published in Foreign Affairs July/August 2023. Andrea Kendall is Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. From 2015 to 2018, she was Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council, part of the US Federal Intelligence Directorate. Erica Frantz is an associate professor of political science at Michigan State University.

[9] “How wars Don’t End” article by Margaret MacMillan, Emeritus Professor of International History at Oxford, published in Foreign Affairs, July/August 2023.

[10] “Growing doubt in Ukraine”, Le Monde Diplomatique, English Language edition, November 2023..

[11] One of the journalists who witnessed the siege of Mariupol right up to the end recounts that "at one point, people didn't know who to blame for the bombing, the Russians or the Ukrainians" (A harrowing film exposes the brutality of Russia's war in Ukraine, Vox - Voxmedia, about a documentary on the capture of Mariupol).

[12] "There are now more landmines in Ukraine than almost anywhere else on the planet", Vox (Voxmedia)

[13] Iryna Stavchuk, Ukrainian Minister for the Environment and Natural Resources, published in "Les guerres contre nature", Le Monde 11 June 2022.

[14] “Growing doubt in Ukraine”, Le Monde Diplomatique, English Language edition, November 2023.

[15] See the Report on the International Situation to the Conference of the Gauche Communiste de France, July 1945, extracts published in “50 years ago: the real causes of the Second World War [37]”, International Review 59

[16] "L'industrie d'armement russe monte en puissance », Le Monde, 4 November 2023.

[17] “The myth of Russian decline”, by Michael Kofman and Andrea Kendall-Taylor (Center for a New American Security), Foreign Affairs, November/December 2021.

[18] See Significance and impact of the war in Ukraine [38]; International Review 169, 2022.

[19] "'No turning back': how the Ukraine war has profoundly changed the EU", the Guardian, September 30, 2023.

[20] It has now been established that this sabotage was of Ukrainian origin, although it is not clear whether it was carried out with the government's consent (see Le Figaro international [39]).

[21]  Report on the International Situation to the Conference of the Gauche Communiste de France, July 1945, extracts published in “50 years ago: the real causes of the Second World War [37]”, International Review 59, ibid

[22] Militarism and decomposition (May 2022) [40], International Review 168, May 2022.

[23] “Ukraine fears another plunge into cold and darkness”, headlines the Washington Post, Wednesday 11 October 2023.

[24] “Ukraine, the education system takes a stand”, article by Qubit, a Hungarian scientific journal, published in Courrier International 1275, 23-29 November 2023

[25] According to the study by the University of Uppsala (Sweden), referred to in note 2.

[26] The expression "bleed to death", used by Hillary Clinton to describe the United States' objective vis-à-vis Russia in this war, was used by Erich von Falkenhayn, the German Chief of Staff, during the siege of the fortress of Verdun in the First World War against France, which he wanted to force to exhaust its forces. The failure of the German offensive resulted in carnage, with the loss of 750,000 men (killed, wounded and missing), including 143,000 Germans and 163,000 French.

[28] The struggles of the summer of 2022 in Great Britain, which, under the slogan "enough is enough", marked a break with 40 years of passivity after the defeat of the miners' strikes of 1983, have been called the “summer of anger”; this term refers to the struggles of 1978-1979, which were referred to as the winter of discontent.

Rubric: 

World-wide class struggle or capitalist devastation

Between internationalism and the "defence of the nation"

  • 797 reads

The diverse nature of the response of the anarchist organisations to the imperialist slaughter in Ukraine is quite predictable. From its inception, anarchism was marked by a profound revolt against capitalist exploitation, by a resistance to the proletarianisation of the artisan layers. Subsequently, leaving aside its role within the radical petty bourgeoisie, anarchism had an influence on parts of the proletariat, bringing with it a vision which tended to oscillate permanently between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Anarchism has thus always been divided into a whole series of tendencies, ranging from those who have become part of the left wing of capital, like those who joined the Republican government during the 1936-39 war in Spain, to those who clearly defended internationalist positions against imperialist war, such as Emma Goldman during World War One. Regarding the war in Ukraine, the response from anarchism is extremely dispersed – from open war mongers to calls for international solidarity and united action against the war. In crucial moments of history, notably revolutions and imperialist wars, authentically proletarian elements within anarchism have demarcated themselves from those who have been sucked into the « Sacred Union » and nationalism. Only the genuinely proletarian elements within anarchism have been capable of adopting an internationalist line and should be supported in their effort to defend it. As left communists, we clearly denounce the leftist or bourgeois positions, put forward by various anarchists, but at the same time we support the attempts of groups such as KRAS in Russia[1] [42] (whose statement we have already published on our website), Anarcho-syndicalist Initiative in Serbia[2] [42] and the Anarchist Communist Group in Britain[3] [42]  to intervene in the situation with a clear internationalist position.

From internationalism…

 The ACG (Anarchist Communist Group) took a basically internationalist stance from the beginning of the war (ACG website the 27th of February, “Take the side of the working class, not competing imperialist interests”). At the same time this statement contains a number of confused demands, such as the “disbandment of NATO”, and the “the mass occupying of Russian oligarchs’ property in Britain and their immediate conversion to social housing”. (What about the properties of Ukrainian oligarchs?) You could see the same immediatist vision in the statement of the ASI group in Belgrade, who, despite a certain clarity on the nature of what “peace” means in capitalism, declares: “Let’s turn capitalist wars into a workers’ revolution!” This call for revolutionary action is totally unrealistic given the low level of class struggle today. But these confusions do not cancel out the internationalist basics of these groups’ responses to the war.

A joint internationalist statement had already been published, signed by 17 groups around the Anarkismo Coordination, on the 25th of February, including the ACG. Here it states clearly, that “…our revolutionary and class duty dictates the organisation and strengthening of the internationalist, anti-war and anti-imperialist movement of the working class. The logic of more aggressive or more progressive imperialism is a logic that leads to the defeat of the working class. There can be no pro-people’s imperialist road. The interests of the working class cannot be identified with those of the capitalists and the imperialist powers.”[4] [42] On the ACG website there is also a strong denunciation of anarchist groups and publications defending nationalism, such as the Freedom group in London[5] [42].

… to openly bourgeois positions

But the statements of the different anarchist currents have to be read carefuly and critically. For example, the French-speaking section of the International  of Anarchist Federations, in a leaflet published the 24th of February, proclaimed: “We also call, all over the world, to fight against capitalism, nationalism and imperialism as well as the army which always push towards new wars”[6] [42]

At the same time, in the same International Anarchist Federation, we can see an open call for participation in the war: a call of support for the Resistance Committees in Ukraine, fighting for the “liberation” of the country. Different anarchist groups in uniform and armed football firms are presented as “freedom fighters” – often with reference to the Black Army of Makhno during the Civil War in Russia. So, there is a clear “gradient” in the anarchist milieu today: calls for internationalism, and at the same time a call for participation in this escalating conflict, as adjuncts of the Ukrainian army under the banner of the Resistance Committees[7] [42]. Also, anarchists from Belarus living in Ukraine are joining the forces of the Ukrainian state – another sign of the defeat and disorientation of the working class in the area.

Another, quite obvious, example of completely bourgeois positions is the statement of Russian anarchists in the group Anarchist Fighter: “…what is happening now in Ukraine goes beyond this simple formula, and the principle that every anarchist should fight for the defeat of their country in war” (our emphasis).They also argue that “The defeat of Russia, in the current situation, will increase the likelihood of people waking up, the same way that occurred in 1905 [when Russia’s military defeat by Japan led to an uprising in Russia], or in 1917 [when Russia’s problems in the First World War led to the Russian Revolution]—opening their eyes to what is happening in the country..

As for Ukraine, its victory will also pave the way for the strengthening of grassroots democracy—after all, if it is achieved, it will be only through popular self-organization, mutual assistance, and collective resistance. These should be the answer to the challenges that war throws at society.”[8] [42]

In the war of 1914-18 and subsequently, authentic internationalists like Lenin used the term “revolutionary defeatism” to insist that the class struggle must continue even if it meant the military defeat of your “own” country, but it went together with a clear denunciation of both rival camps. In the hands of the left wing of capital, whether it calls itself “Leninist” or anarchist, the call for the defeat of one country goes together with support for their imperialist rival, as is evidently the case with the Anarchist Fighter group. This has nothing whatsoever in common with proletarian internationalism.

Significant sectors of anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism, at the same time as referring to its strong antimilitarist tradition, have once again expressed their support for nationalist war – just as they did, together with Social Democracy at the beginning of the WW1. But the difference was, that while the Social Democrats betrayed their internationalist principles, the anarchists were following a certain logic, as we pointed out in our article on “Anarchism and Imperialist War” in 2009:

“The rallying to imperialist war and the bourgeoisie in 1914 by the majority of anarchists internationally was, on the contrary, not a false move but the logical conclusion of their anarchism, conforming to their essential political positions.

Thus, in 1914, it was in the name of anti-authoritarianism, because it was unthinkable ‘that one country could be violated by another’ (Letter to J.Grave), that Kropotkin justified his chauvinist position in favour of France. By basing their internationalism on ‘‘self-determination' and ‘the absolute right of any individual, any association, any commune, province, region, nation to decide themselves, to associate or not associate, to link up with whom they wanted and break their alliances'" (Daniel Guerin, Anarchism, Gallimard p.80) the anarchists merely reflected the divisions that capitalism imposed on the proletariat. This chauvinist position has its roots in the federalism that is found at the very basis of all anarchist conceptions. In arguing that the nation is a natural phenomenon, in defending the right of all nations to existence and to their free development, anarchism judges the sole danger in the existence of nations to be their propensity to give way to the ‘nationalism' instilled by the dominant class in order to separate the people one from the other. It is naturally led, in any imperialist war, to operate a distinction between aggressors/aggressed, oppressors/oppressed, etc, and thus to opt for the defence of the weakest, of rights that have been flouted, etc. This attempt to base the refusal to go to war on something other than the class positions of the proletariat leaves all sorts of latitude to justify support for one or the other belligerent parties. Concretely, that's to say, to choose one imperialist camp against another” [9] .

Today, the anarchist “family” is being torn apart by the fundamental contradiction between internationalism and support for imperialist war. Today, more than ever, the communist left must assume its responsibilities and act as a pole of reference and clarity against all this confusion. For the communist left, as part of the marxist tradition, proletarian internationalism is not based on abstract ideals such as liberty for individuals, regions or nations but on the real conditions of proletarian existence: “Internationalism is based on universal conditions imposed on the working class by capitalism at the world level - on the exploitation of its labour power, in every country and on every continent. It was in the name of such internationalism that the First International and the two Internationals that followed were born. Internationalism is based on the essential fact that the conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat are international: beyond frontiers and military fronts, beyond ethnic origins and particular cultures, the proletariat finds its unity in the common struggle against its conditions of exploitation and for the abolition of wage labour, for communism” (ibid).

Edvin

[1] https://en.internationalism.org/content/17154/internationalist-statement... [43]. KRAS is affiliated to the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers Association (IWA/AIT)

[2]  "Let's turn capitalist wars into a workers' revolution" on the site of the IWA: https://iwa-ait.org/content/lets-turn-capitalist-wars-workers-revolution [44]

[3] "Take the side of the working class, not competing imperialist states", on the site of the ACG: https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2022/02/27/take-the-side-of-the-working-class-not-competing-imperialist-states/ [45]

[4] "Against militarism and war - for self-organised struggle": https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2022/02/25/ukraine-international-statement/ [46]

[5] "Identity, nationalism and xenophobia at Freedom" on the ACG website: https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2022/03/07/identity-nationalism-and-xenophobia-at-freedom/ [47]

[6] "International Solidarity against Russian invasion! Stop the War!": https://i-f-a.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/fa-statement.pdf [48]. The rest of this appeal is a hypocritical contortion between pacifism and the defence of Ukraine

[7] "Ukrainian anarchists mobilise for armed defence. Draw solidarity from abroad as Russia invades" on the site Militant Wire: https://www.militantwire.com/p/ukrainian-anarchists-mobilize-for?s=r [49]

[9] "Anarchism and imperialist war, part 1: Anarchists faced with the First World War": https://en.internationalism.org/2009/wr/325/anarchism-war1 [51]

 

Rubric: 

Anarchists and the war in Ukraine

Zimmerwald Conference – An indispensable reference for the defence of internationalism

  • 184 reads

The struggle against war can only be taken in hand by the working class through the struggle on its own class terrain and its international unification. Revolutionary organisations cannot wait for a massive mobilisation by the working class against the war: they must act as a determined spearhead in the defence of internationalism and point to the need for the overthrow of the system. This demands that the working class and its revolutionary organisations reappropriate the lessons and the attitudes of previous struggles against war. The experience of the Zimmerwald conference is enlightening in this respect.

Zimmerwald is a small town in Switzerland, and in September1915 it was host to a small conference: 38 delegates from 12 countries - all the internationalists transported there in a couple of taxis, as Trotsky joked.  And even among these few, only a small minority defended a really revolutionary position against the war. Only the Bolsheviks around Lenin and some of the other German groups stood for revolutionary methods and revolutionary goals: transformation of the imperialist war into civil war, the destruction of capitalism as the source of all wars. The other participants had a centrist position or even leaned strongly to the right.

The result of the fierce debates at Zimmerwald was a manifesto to the proletarians of the world which was in many ways a compromise between the left and the centre, since it did not take up the Bolsheviks’ revolutionary slogans. Nevertheless its ringing denunciation of the war and its call for class action against it still enabled it to articulate and politicise the anti-war sentiments that were growing among the mass of the working class.

The struggle for internationalism needs political organisation

The example of Zimmerwald demonstrates that, for revolutionaries, the struggle against war takes place at three distinct but interconnected levels:

  • Propaganda and agitation: Revolutionaries did not wait until the class started moving: they started agitation against the war at the first day of hostilities, well before the class was able to  react. The regroupment of revolutionaries into political organisations enabled them to develop their propaganda and agitation through the medium of a regular press and mass-produced leaflets, and to speak in the workers’ assemblies and councils which arose later, not as individuals representing only themselves but on behalf of a definite political tendency within the class movement.  
  • Organisational: the betrayal of the majority of the old parties demanded that the minority of internationalists had to work as an organised fraction, to work either for the expulsion of the traitors or, when this proved impossible, as it did in the majority of cases, to fight to win over the maximum number of healthy elements and to prepare the ground for a new party, a new International. This demanded a relentless battle against centrism and opportunism, against the ideological influence of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. Thus the Zimmerwald left in particular was the driving force behind the formation of the Third International in 1919. In a situation of war or impending revolution, the heroism of individual militants like Luxemburg, Liebknecht, John Mclean or Sylvia Pankhurst was certainly vital, but could never be enough on its own. It could only have a real meaning in the context of collective organisation around a clear political programme;
  • Theoretical: the necessity to understand the characteristics of the new epoch demands a patient work of theoretical elaboration, an ability to step back and reassess the whole situation in the light of the past and of the perspectives for the future. The work of Lenin, Bukharin, Luxemburg, Pannekoek and others enabled the re-emerging political movement of the class to understand that a new epoch had dawned, one in which the class struggle would take on new forms and new methods to achieve directly revolutionary objectives. There were considerable divergences on a number of questions, for example between Lenin and Luxemburg on national self-determination, but this did not prevent them from taking a common position against the war while continuing to debate as passionately and intensely as before.

We cannot go into more detail here, but encourage our readers to read the following articles:

https://en.internationalism.org/content/3154/zimmerwald-1915-1917-war-revolution [52]

https://en.internationalism.org/international-review/201508/13354/zimmerwald-and-centrist-currents-political-organisations-proletari [53]

https://en.internationalism.org/wr/290_zimmerwald.html [54]

 

Rubric: 

Revolutionaries and war

Confronted with war and economic crisis, the working class must not make any sacrifices

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Unleashing the barbarism of war in Ukraine means that the whole world is threatened with its collateral "damage", in particular in the growth of poverty worldwide and through the mounting attacks on the living standards of the working class: increased exploitation, inflated prices and widespread unemployment.

In addition to the threats of possible nuclear strikes by Russia and the risk of radioactive gases escaping from Ukrainian nuclear power plants damaged by the fighting, measures are being taken or planned by a numerous countries in order to bring the Russian economy to its knees, which carries the risk of destabilising the world economy. Moreover, a tragic illustration of the current escalation of war, the notable tendency to increase military budgets (Germany has suddenly decided to double its budget), will constitute an additional factor in weakening the economies of the countries involved.

Towards a new global economic depression and renewed wars

The retaliation with economic sanctions against Russia is going to lead to shortages of raw materials in a large number of European countries and the loss of markets in Russia for some of them. The prices of raw materials will keep rising for a long time and, as a result, so will the prices of many other goods. The recession will affect the whole world, bringing with it widespread poverty and an increased exploitation of the working class.

This is no exaggeration, as is shown by the statements of German experts reassuring a "well-informed public" anxious to know what the future holds while also protecting the best interests of the bourgeoisie: "We are talking about a serious economic crisis in Germany and hence in Europe". "Business collapses and unemployment" would be on the horizon for a long time: "We are not talking about three days or three weeks", but rather "three years".[1] In this context, high energy prices sustained at a historic level would have consequences far beyond Germany and Europe and would affect the poor countries most of all. Ultimately, such a rise in energy prices could, it was said yesterday, "lead to the collapse of entire states in Asia, Africa and South America."[2]

The scale and the depth of the measures taken against Russia, despite their undeniable severity, do not in themselves explain the economic tsunami that will hit the world. The current level of the decline of the world economy, which is the product of a long process of a worsening of the global crisis of capitalism, must be taken into account. But it is on this question that the "experts" chose to remain silent, so as not to have to admit that the cause of the decline of world capitalism lies in its historical and insurmountable crisis, just as they are careful not to identify this war, like all those that have occurred since the First World War, as a product of decadent capitalism. Nor do they mention certain consequences of a new plunge of the economy into crisis and the accentuation of the trade war that is inseparable from it: a new worsening of imperialist tensions and a new headlong rush into armed conflict.[3] Following a similar defence of capitalism, some are worried about the very likely consequences of a severe shortage of basic foodstuffs, those produced in Ukraine previously, together with the resulting social unrest in a number of countries, without any obvious concern for the suffering of the starving populations.

A global economy overwhelmed by the accumulation of the contradictions of capitalism

The Covid pandemic had already exposed the growing vulnerability of the economy to the convergence of a number of unique factors in the period of capitalism's life since the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the subsequent dissolution of both blocs.

In fact an increasingly short-term vision has led capitalism to sacrifice a certain number of imperative necessities for any system of exploitation - such as maintaining the health of those it exploits - to the demands of the crisis and of global economic competition. Thus, capitalism has done nothing to prevent the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which is itself a pure social product given the way it has been transmitted from animals to humans and spread across the globe, even though scientists had warned of these dangers. Moreover, the deterioration of the health care systems which has taken place over the last 30 years has contributed to making the pandemic much more deadly. In the same way, the extent of the disaster and its repercussions on the economy have been further fuelled by the exacerbation of the "every man for himself" attitude at all levels of society (a characteristic of the current phase of decomposition of capitalism), thus aggravating the classic manifestations of competition and giving rise to incredible episodes such as the war for masks, respirators, vaccines, etc., not only between countries, but also between state and private services within the same country. Millions of people have died around the world, and the partial paralysis of economic activity and its disorganisation led to the worst depression since the Second World War in 2020.

By affecting the worldwide economy, the pandemic would also reveal new problems for capitalist production, such as the increased vulnerability of supply chains to various factors. Indeed, it only takes one link in the chain to be defective or inoperable due to disease, political instability or climatic disasters, for the final product to suffer a delay, sometimes a very significant one that is inconsistent with the requirements of the market. Thus, in some countries, a considerable number of cars could not be put on the market because they were immobilised on the assembly lines waiting for missing parts, in particular those delivered by Russia. Capitalism is thus confronted with the boomerang effect of the excessive "globalisation" of the economy that the bourgeoisie had progressively developed from the 1980s onwards, the aim being to improve the profitability of capital through the outsourcing of production and the employment of a much cheaper workforce.

Moreover, capitalism is increasingly confronted with disasters resulting from the effects of global warming (huge fires, rivers that violently burst their banks, extensive floods...) which, in an increasingly significant way, affect not only agricultural production but production as a whole. Capitalism is thus paying the price for the relentless exploitation and destruction of nature since 1945 (the impact of which became more widely perceptible from the 1970s onwards) through the heightened competition between the various capitals in the search for new and increasingly limited sources of profit. The picture we have just sketched is not a recent discovery, but the result of more than a hundred years of the decadence of capitalism, initiated by the First World War, during which this system had to deal repeatedly with the effects of the crisis of overproduction, which lies at the heart of all the contradictions of capitalism. This crisis was at the origin of all the recessions of this period: first the Great Depression of the 1930s and then, after a semblance of economic recovery during the 1950s and 1960s, which became known as the "Post war boom", the open crisis which appeared again at the end of the 1960s. Each of its expressions resulted in a more severe recession than the previous one: 1967, 1970, 1975, 1982, 1991, 2001, 2009. Each time, the economic system had to be revived by a resort to debt which, in an ever-increasing proportion, would only be repaid by resorting to new debt, and so on... So that each new open manifestation of the crisis is at the same time more devastating, while the means used to deal with it, debt, constitutes a growing threat to economic stability.

The slowdown in growth ten years after the financial crash of 2008 required a further boost to debt, while the fall in production in 2020 that was intended, as we have seen, to support the economy in the face of a set of "new" factors (pandemic, global warming, vulnerability of supply chains, etc.), contributed to a new record high in world debt, tending to disconnect it even more from the real economy (it jumped to 256% of the value of world GDP). This situation is not insignificant. It is a factor in the devaluation of currencies and therefore in the development of inflation. A long-term price explosion contains the risk of social unrest of various kinds (inter-classist movements and class struggle) and constitutes an impediment to world trade. This is why the bourgeoisie will increasingly be forced to perform a balancing act – which, although familiar to it, is becoming more and more perilous - in order to respond to two conflicting requirements:

  • Raising interest rates to curb soaring inflation, which has the consequence of reducing the flow of credit;
  • Sustaining an economy that cannot function without permanent injections of credit.

And this in a context tending towards economic stagnation combined with high inflation.

Moreover, such a situation is conducive to the bursting of speculative bubbles that can destabilise global business and trade (as in the real estate sector in the United States in 2008 and in China in 2021).

The lies of the bourgeoisie

Faced with each and every catastrophe in the world, whether it be war or the expressions of the economic crisis, the bourgeoisie always provides a panoply of spurious and diverse explanations which all have in common the fact that they place no blame on capitalism for the calamities plaguing humanity.

In 1973 (a year that was only a moment in the deepening of the open crisis that has since become more or less permanent) the development of unemployment and inflation was explained by the rise in the price of oil. However, the rise in oil prices is a by-product of capitalist trade and not of something that is external to this system [4].

The current situation is a new illustration of this rule. The war in Ukraine is blamed on authoritarian Russia and not on crisis ridden capitalism, as if Russia were not an integral part of world capitalism.

Faced with the prospects of a considerable worsening of the economic crisis, the bourgeoisie is preparing the ground to make the proletariat feel it should accept the terrible sacrifices that will be imposed on it, presenting them as the necessary consequence of the retaliatory measures against Russia. It has this well-prepared message: "the population can choose to turn down the heating or to reduce what it eats in solidarity with the Ukrainian people, because this is the price of the essential task of weakening Russia".

Since 1914, the working class has been through hell: either as the cannon fodder in two world wars and in the incessant and deadly regional conflicts; or as the victim of mass unemployment during the Great Depression of the 1930s; or being forced to roll up its sleeves to rebuild countries and economies ravaged by two world wars; or being thrown into the precariousness and poverty with each new recession since the return of the world economic crisis at the end of the 1960s.

With a new descent into economic crisis, and faced with the ever-growing threat of war, it would be a total disaster if the working class listened to the bourgeoisie's demands for sacrifice. Quite the contrary, it must profit from the contradictions of capitalism that are expressed by the war and the economic attacks so it can push forward the class struggle, consciously developing the perspective of overthrowing capitalism.

Silvio (March 26, 2022)

Notes:

[1] "Habeck: Examining ways to moderate energy prices", Sueddeutsche (8 March 2022)
[2] "U.S. puts an oil embargo on the agenda", Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (8 March 2022).
[3] "Resolution on the international situation [56] ", International Review no. 63 (June 1990).
[4] Read our article, "The rise in oil prices: an effect not the cause of the crisis" [57] [2], International Review no. 19

 

Rubric: 

Imperialist conflict in Ukraine

United States, Russia, European Union, Ukraine... all states are responsible for the war!

  • 352 reads

Bourgeois society, rotten to the core, profoundly sick, once again vomits its filthy torrent of iron and fire. Each day the Ukrainian butchery displays its cortege of massive bombardments, ambushes, sieges, with columns of refugees fleeing by the million the constant fire of the belligerents.

In the midst of the flood of propaganda poured out by the governments of every country, two lies particularly stand out: the first presents Putin as a “mad dictator” readying himself to become the new Tsar of a reconstituted empire while getting his hands on the “riches of Ukraine”; the other attributes the main responsibility for the conflict to the “genocide” against the Russian-speaking populations of the Donbass whose lives the “heroic” Russian soldiers have come to save. The bourgeoisie always takes particular care to mask the real causes of war by draping them with ideological veils like “civilisation”, “democracy”, “human rights” and “international order”. But the real responsibility for the war lies with capitalism!

Another step towards chaos

Since the arrival of Putin to power in 2000, Russia has made important efforts to provide itself with a more modern army and to reconquer its influence in the Middle East, notably in Syria, but also in Africa with the sending of mercenaries to Libya, Central Africa and Mali, sowing more chaos. These last years it has not hesitated to launch a direct offensive in Georgia in 2008, then occupying the Crimea and Donbass in 2014, in order to try to restrict the decline of its sphere of influence at the risk of creating major instability on its frontiers. Following the US retreat from Afghanistan, Russia thought that it could profit from the weakening of the Americans in order to bring Ukraine into its sphere of influence, a territory essential to its position in Europe and the world, especially since Kyiv was threatening to link up with NATO.

Since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989, this is certainly not the first time that war has broken out on the European continent. The Balkans War in the early 1990’s and the conflict in Donbass in 2014 had already brought misfortune and desolation to the continent. But the war in Ukraine already has much more serious implications than the preceding conflicts, illustrating how the tide of chaos more and more approaches the main centres of capitalism.

Russia, one of the world’s main military powers is, in effect, directly and massively involved in the invasion of a country occupying a strategic position in Europe, up to the frontiers of the European Union. At the time of writing, Russia has already lost around 10,000 soldiers and many more have been wounded or have deserted. Some towns have been razed to the ground by a blitz of bombing. The number of civilian casualties is probably considerable. And this hardly a month into the war![1]

The region will henceforth see an enormous concentration of troops and advanced military material and equipment, with soldiers and mercenaries coming from all over the place, but also in Eastern Europe with the deployment of thousands of NATO soldiers and the mobilisation of the only ally of Putin, Belorussia. Several European states have decided to considerably increase their re-armament programmes to the first rank including the Baltic States, but also Germany which has doubled its “defence” budget.

For its part, Russia regularly threatens the world with reprisals and shamelessly brandishes its nuclear arsenal. The French Minister of Defence also warned Putin that he will have to face “nuclear powers”, before calming down to a much more “diplomatic” tone. Without even talking about a nuclear conflict, the risk of a major industrial accident is on the cards. Some ferocious fighting has already broken out at the nuclear facilities of Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia, where buildings (fortunately only administrative ones) have caught fire following bombardments.

To all this can be added a major migrant crisis in Europe itself. Millions of Ukrainians flee towards bordering countries in order to escape the war and forced conscription into Zelensky’s army. But taking account the growth of of populism in Europe and the sometimes explicit will of several states to cynically instrumentalise migrants for their imperialist ends (as we’ve recently seen on the Belorussian frontier or through the regular threats of Turkey against the European Union), in time this massive exodus could create serious tensions and instability.

In sum, the war in Ukraine carries a major risk of chaos, destabilisation and destruction at the international level. If this conflict doesn’t open up a still more bloody conflagration, it can only increase such dangers, with the risk of an uncontrolled “escalation” that could involve unimaginable consequences.

Is Russia alone responsible for the war?

If the Russian bourgeoisie has opened hostilities in order to defend its sordid imperialist interests, the propaganda presenting Ukraine and the western countries as victims of a “mad dictator” is a hypocritical masquerade. For months the American government has been warning of an imminent Russian attack, a clear provocation, while claiming that it wouldn’t put boots on Ukrainian soil.

Since the dislocation of the USSR, Russia has been continually threatened on it borders as much in Eastern Europe as in the Caucasus and Central Asia. The United States and the European powers have methodically pushed back at the Russian sphere of influence by integrating a number of eastern European countries of into the EU and NATO. This was also the significance of the eviction of the ex-President of Georgia, Shevardnadze, in 2003 at the time of the “Rose Revolutions” which brought an American clique to power. The same goes for the “Orange Revolution” of 2004 in Ukraine and all the conflicts which have followed between different factions of the local bourgeoisie. The active support of the Western powers for the pro-European opposition in Belorussia, the war in the High-Karabakh under the pressure of Turkey (a member of NATO) and the settling of accounts at the top of the Kazakh state have only accentuated the feeling of urgency within the Russian bourgeoisie.

Just as much for “Tsarist” as “Soviet” Russia, Ukraine has always represented a central stake in its foreign policy. For Moscow in fact Ukraine is the sole means for direct access to the Mediterranean. The annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 already followed this imperative of Russian imperialism, which is directly threatened by encirclement through regimes backed by the Americans for the most part. The will of the United States to draw Ukraine towards the West is thus seen by Putin and his clique as a real provocation. In this sense, even if the offensive of the Russian army seems totally irrational and doomed to failure from the beginning, it is for Moscow a desperate “power grab” destined to maintain its ranking as a world power.

Perfectly lucid about the situation in Russia, the American bourgeoisie, although divided on the question, did not fail to push Putin into action by multiplying these provocations. When Biden explicitly assured everyone that he would not intervene directly in Ukraine, he deliberately left a vacuum that Russia immediately used in the hope of stemming its decline on the international scene. This is not the first time that the United States has used such cold Machiavellianism to achieve its ends: already in 1990, Bush senior had pushed Saddam Hussein into a trap by claiming not to want to intervene to defend Kuwait. We know the rest…

It is still too early to predict the duration and extent of the already considerable destruction in Ukraine, but since the 1990s we have known about the massacres of Srebrenica, Grozny, Sarajevo, Fallujah and Aleppo. Anyone who starts a war is often doomed to get bogged down. In the 1980s, Russia paid a heavy price following the invasion of Afghanistan, which led to the implosion of the USSR. The United States has had its own fiascos, weakening it both militarily and economically. All these adventures ultimately ended, despite apparent initial victories, in bitter setbacks and considerably weakened the belligerents. Putin's Russia, if it doesn’t suddenly fall back after a humiliating defeat, will not escape the stalemate, even if it manages to seize the major Ukrainian cities.

All countries and all wars are imperialist

“A new imperialism threatens peace in the world”[2], “The Ukrainians have fought Russian imperialism for hundreds of years”[3].

“Russian imperialism”, the bourgeoisie says - as if Russia were the quintessence of imperialism in contrast to the helpless Ukrainian chick. In reality, since the entry of capitalism into its period of decadence, war and militarism have become fundamental characteristics of this system. All states, big or small, are imperialist; all wars, whether they claim to be “humanitarian”, “liberating” or “democratic”, are imperialist wars. This is what revolutionaries had already identified during the First World War: at the beginning of the 20th century, the world market was entirely divided into the preserves of the main capitalist nations. Faced with increased competition and the impossibility of loosening the grip of the contradictions of capitalism through new colonial or commercial conquests, national states built up gigantic arsenals and subjected the whole of economic and social life to the imperatives of war. It was in this context that the World War broke out in August 1914, a slaughter then unequaled in the history of humanity, a dazzling expression of a new "era of wars and revolutions".

Faced with fierce competition and the omnipresence of war in every nation, small or large, two phenomena have developed which constitute the major characteristics of the period of decadence: state capitalism and imperialist blocs. “State capitalism […] responds to the need for each country, with a view to confrontation with other nations, to obtain the maximum discipline within it from the different sectors of society, to reduce to the minimum clashes between classes but also between rival fractions of the dominant class, in order, in particular, to mobilise and control all of its economic potential. Likewise, the constitution of imperialist blocs corresponds to the need to impose a similar discipline between different national bourgeoisies in order to limit their reciprocal antagonisms and to bring them together for the supreme confrontation between the two military camps.” [4]The capitalist world was thus divided throughout the 20th century into rival blocs: Allies against Axis powers, Western bloc against Eastern bloc.

But with the collapse of the USSR at the end of the 1980s, the final phase of the decadence of capitalism began: the period of its generalised decomposition, [5]marked by the disappearance of imperialist blocs for more than 30 years. The relegation of the Russian “policeman” and, de facto, the dislocation of the American bloc, opened the way to a whole series of rivalries and local conflicts hitherto suppressed by the iron discipline of the blocs. This trend of every man for himself and increasing chaos has since been fully confirmed.

Since 1990, the only “superpower”, the United States, has tried to establish a minimum of order in the world and slow down the inevitable decline of its own leadership… by resorting to war. As the world had ceased to be divided into two disciplined imperialist camps, a country like Iraq thought it possible to lay hands on a former ally of the same bloc, Kuwait. The United States, at the head of a coalition of 35 countries, launched a murderous offensive intended to discourage any future temptation to imitate the actions of Saddam Hussein.

But the operation could in no way put an end to every man for himself on the imperialist level, a typical manifestation of the process of the decomposition of society. In the Balkan wars, the fierce rivalries between the powers of the former Western bloc were already exposed to broad daylight, in particular France, the United Kingdom and Germany which, in addition to the murderous American and Russian interventions, waged war through the means of the various belligerents in the former Yugoslavia. The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, in turn, marked another significant step in the chaos striking at the heart of global capitalism. Leftist theories about American greed for oil profits being a major cause of these wars were fundamentally refuted by their staggering cost. It was above all in the context of the USA’s efforts to reassert its global authority that it had to unleash the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, in the name of "the war against terrorism".

America imperialism launched itself into a veritable headlong rush: during the second Gulf War, Germany, France and Russia were no longer content to just drag their feet behind Uncle Sam, they flatly refused to engage their soldiers. Above all, each of these operations only engendered such chaos and instability that the United States ended up getting bogged down, to the point of having to leave Afghanistan in a humiliating fashion 20 years later, leaving behind them a field of ruins in the hands of the very same Taliban they had come to depose, just as they had already had to abandon Iraq in the grip of an immense anarchy, destabilising the whole region, in particular neighboring Syria. In the period of decomposition, precisely by seeking to maintain its rank as the first world power, the United States became the main propagator of chaos.

The United States provokes chaos on the doorstep of one the principal centres of world capitalism

Today, the United States has undeniably scored points on the imperialist level, without even having to intervene directly. Russia, a long-time adversary, is engaged in an unwinnable war that will result, whatever the outcome, in major military and economic weakening. Already, the European Union and the United States have announced the way it’s going: according to the head of European diplomacy, it is a question of "devastating the Russian economy"... and so much the worse for the proletariat in Russia who will pay for all these retaliatory measures. Along with the Ukrainian proletariat, it is the first victim and the hostage of the unleashing of military barbarism!

The Americans have also regained control of NATO, which the French President recently announced was "brain dead", considerably strengthening their presence in the East and forcing the main European powers (Germany, France and the United Kingdom) to assume more of the economic burden of militarism for the defense of Europe's eastern borders. This is a policy that the United States has been trying to implement for several years, notably under the presidency of Trump, and now continued by Biden, in order to concentrate its force against its principal enemy: China.

For the Europeans, the situation represents a diplomatic defeat of the first order and a considerable loss of influence. The conflict fueled by the United States was not wanted by France and Germany which, because of their dependence on Russian gas and the market that this country represents for their own goods, had nothing to gain from this conflict. On the contrary, Europe will experience a further acceleration of the economic crisis under the impact of the war and the sanctions imposed on Russia. The Europeans therefore have had to line up behind the American shield after the diplomatic weakening caused by Trump's flippancy had made them hope for a strong comeback of the old continent onto the international scene.

Is the fact that the main European powers are forced to line up behind the United States the beginnings of the formation of a new imperialist bloc? The period of decomposition does not, in itself, prohibit the constitution of new blocs, although the weight of every man for himself considerably hampers this eventuality. Nevertheless, in this situation the irrational will of each state to defend its own imperialist interests is greatly reinforced. Germany has been dragging its feet somewhat in enforcing sanctions and continues to walk on eggshells over the question of further sanctions on the Russian gas exports on which it heavily depends. Moreover, it has not ceased, with France, to intervene by offering a diplomatic exit to Russia, which Washington is of course seeking to delay. Even Turkey and Israel are trying to offer their "good services" as intermediaries. Eventually, with the increase in their military spending, the major European powers could even seek to emancipate themselves from American tutelage, an ambition that Macron regularly defends through his “European defense” project. While the United States has undeniably scored points in the short term, each country therefore also tries to play its own cards, compromising the constitution of a bloc all the more easily since China, for its part, is unable to gather any significant powers behind it. The war is currently holding back China’s ability to defend its own interests and objectives.  

China is the ultimate objective of American strategy

However, the manoeuvres of the American bourgeoisie are not aimed solely or primarily at Russia. The confrontation between the United States and China today determines global imperialist relations. By creating a situation of chaos in Ukraine, Washington has above all sought to fetter China's advance towards Europe blocking, for a still indefinite period, the "silk roads" which were to pass through the countries of Europe from the east. After threatening China's sea lanes in the Indo-Pacific region with, among other things, the creation of the AUKUS alliance in 2021,[6] Biden has just created a huge divide in Europe, preventing China from transporting its goods by land.

The United States has also succeeded in showing China's impotence in playing the role of reliable partner on the international scene since it has no other choice but to support Russia in a very weak way. In this sense, the American offensive that we are witnessing is part of its more global strategy of containment of China.

Since the wars in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and in the Middle East, the United States has become, as we’ve seen, the main factor of chaos in the world. So far, this trend has been confirmed first in the peripheral countries of capitalism, although the central countries have also suffered the consequences (terrorism, migration crises, etc.). But today, the first world power is creating chaos at the gates of one of the main centres of capitalism. This criminal strategy is led by “democrat” and “moderate” Joe Biden. His predecessor, Donald Trump, had a well-deserved reputation as a hothead, but it now seems obvious that to neutralise China, only the strategy differs: Trump wanted to negotiate agreements with Russia, Biden and the majority of the American bourgeoisie wanted it bled white. Putin and his clique of assassins are no better, just like Zelensky who does not hesitate to take an entire population hostage and sacrifice them as cannon fodder in the name of the defense of the fatherland. And what about the hypocritical European democracies which, while crying crocodile tears over the victims of war, deliver phenomenal quantities of military equipment?

From left to right, democratic or dictatorial, all countries, all bourgeoisies are leading us on a forced march towards chaos and barbarism! More than ever, the only alternative available to humanity is: socialism or barbarism!

 

EG, March 21, 2022

 

[1] For a comparison, the USSR lost 25,000 soldiers during the nine years of the terrible war which ravaged Afghanistan.

[2] “Against Russian imperialism, for an internationalist leap”, Mediapart, March 2nd 2022.This article with an evocative title borders on farce, especially on the part of its author, Edwy Plenel, a great defender of French imperialism who openly calls for war.

[3] “To understand the Ukraine-Russia conflict, look to colonialism”, The Washington Post, 24th February, 2022.

“Decomposition: the ultimate stage of decadent capitalism”.

Rubric: 

Imperialist conflict in Ukraine

ICC public meetings: Who can put an end to capitalist wars and barbarism?

  • 191 reads

We are currently experiencing the most intense campaign of war propaganda since the Second World War – not only in Russia and Ukraine, but across the globe. It is therefore essential for all those who are seeking to respond to the drums of war with the message of proletarian internationalism to take any opportunity to come together for discussion and clarification, for mutual solidarity and support, and for the definition of serious revolutionary activity against the bourgeoisie’s war drive. This is why the ICC has been holding a series of online and physical public meetings in a number of languages – English, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, German, Portuguese and Turkish, with the intention of holding further meetings in the near future.

In the space of this short article, we cannot attempt to summarise all the discussions that took place at these meetings, which were marked by a serious and fraternal atmosphere, a real desire to comprehend what is going on. Instead, we want to focus on some of the main questions and themes that emerged. We are also publishing on our website some contributions by sympathisers which provide their own view of the discussions and their dynamic[1].

The priority of internationalist principles

The first and probably the most vital theme of the meetings was a broad agreement that the fundamental principles of internationalism – no support for either imperialist camp, rejection of all pacifist illusions, affirmation of the international class struggle as the only force that can really oppose war – remain as valid as ever, despite the enormous ideological pressure, above all in western countries, to rally to the defence of “plucky little Ukraine” against the Russian bear. Some might respond that these are no more than banal generalisations, but they should by no means be taken for granted, and they are certainly not easy to put forward in the current climate where there are very few signs of any class opposition to the war. Internationalists have to recognise that they are, for now, swimming against the stream. In this sense they are in a similar situation to the revolutionaries who, in 1914, had the task of holding on to their principles in the face of the war hysteria that accompanied the early days and months of the First World War. But we can also take inspiration from the fact that the eventual reaction of the working class against the war would turn the general slogans of the internationalists into a guide to action aimed at the overthrow of the capitalist world order.

A second key element of the discussion – and one which was less widely shared – was the need to understand the gravity of the current war, which, following the Covid pandemic, provides further proof that capitalism in its epoch of decay is a growing threat to the very survival of humanity. Even if the war in Ukraine is not preparing the ground for the formation of new imperialist blocs that will take humanity into a third – and no doubt final – world war, it still expresses the intensification and extension of military barbarism which, combined with the destruction of nature and other manifestations of a system in agony, would in the end have the same result as a world war. In our view, the present war marks a significant step in the acceleration of capitalism’s decomposition, a process that contains the threat of overwhelming the proletariat before it is able to muster its forces for a conscious struggle against capital.   

The need for a coherent analysis

We will not elaborate here our reasons for rejecting the argument that we are seeing the reconstitution of stable military blocs. We will simply say that despite real tendencies towards a “bipolarisation” of imperialist antagonisms, we still consider that they are outweighed by the opposite tendency for each imperialist power to defend its own particular interests and resist being subordinated to a particular world power. But this latter tendency is synonymous with a growing lack of control by the ruling class, an increasingly irrational and unpredictable slide towards chaos, which in many ways is leading to a more perilous situation than the one in which the globe was “managed” by rival imperialist blocs, i.e. the so-called “Cold War”.

A number of comrades present at the meetings posed questions about this analysis; and some, for example members of the Communist Workers Organisation at the English-language meetings, were clearly opposed to our concept of the decomposition of the system. But there can be little doubt that a central component of a consistently internationalist position is the capacity to develop a coherent analysis of the situation, otherwise there is a danger of being disoriented by the rapidity and unpredictability of immediate events. And in contrast to the interpretation of the war by the comrades of Cahiers du Marxisme Vivant at one of the meetings in France, we don’t think that simple economic explanations, the hunt for profit in the short term, can explain the real origin and dynamic of imperialist conflict in an historic epoch when economic motives are increasingly dominated by military and strategic necessities. The ruinous costs of this war will provide additional evidence for this affirmation.

Equally important as an understanding of the source and direction of imperialist conflict is to make a sober analysis of the situation of the world working class and the perspectives for the class struggle. While there was a general agreement that the war campaign is inflicting serious blows against the consciousness of a working class which had already been suffering from a deep loss of confidence and self-awareness, some participants at the meeting tended towards the view that the working class was no longer an obstacle to war. Our response was that the working class cannot be treated as a homogeneous mass. It’s evident that the working class in Ukraine, which has been effectively drowned by the mobilisation for the “defence of the nation”, has suffered a real defeat. But it’s different in Russia where there is clearly widespread opposition to the war despite the brutal repression of any dissent, and in the Russian army where there are signs of demoralisation and even rebellion. But most important, the proletariat in the central western countries cannot be counted on to sacrifice itself either on the economic or the military level, and the ruling class of these countries has long been unable to use anything but professional soldiers for its military adventures. In the wake of the mass strikes in Poland in 1980, the ICC developed its critique of Lenin’s theory that the chain of world capitalism would break in its “weakest link” – in less developed countries on the model of Russia in 1917. Instead, we insisted that the more politically developed working class of western Europe would be key to the generalisation of the class struggle. In a future article, we will explain why we think this view remains valid today, despite the changes in the composition of the world proletariat that have subsequently taken place[2]

What is to be done?

The participants at the meeting shared a legitimate concern about the specific responsibility of revolutionaries in the face of this war. In the French and Spanish meetings this was the main focus of the discussion, but in our view a number of comrades veered towards an activist approach, overestimating the possibility of our internationalist slogans having an immediate impact on the course of events. To take the example of the call for fraternisation between proletarians in uniform: while it remains perfectly valid as a general perspective, without the development of a more general class movement such as we saw in the factories and streets in Russia and Germany in 1917-18, there is little chance of the combatants on both sides of this present war seeing each other as class comrades. And of course, genuine internationalists are such a small minority today that they cannot expect to have any immediate impact on the course of the class struggle in general.

Nevertheless, we don’t think that this means that revolutionaries are doomed to be a voice in the wilderness. Again, we must take our inspiration from figures like Lenin and Luxemburg in 1914 who understood the necessity to plant the flag of internationalism even when they were isolated from the mass of their class, to keep on fighting for principles in the face of the treason of former workers’ organisations, and to develop a profound analysis of the real causes of the war in the face of the alibis of the ruling class. Equally, we must follow the example of the Zimmerwald and other conferences which expressed the determination of the internationalists to come together and issue a common manifesto against the war, despite holding to different analyses and perspectives. In this sense we welcome the participation of other revolutionary organisations at these meetings, their contribution to the debate, and their willingness to consider our proposal for a joint statement of the communist left against the war[3] . We can only regret the subsequent decision by the CWO/ICT to reject our proposal, a problem we will have to come back to in a future article.

It was also important that, in answer to questions from comrades about what could be done in their particular locality or country, the ICC stressed the primacy of establishing and developing international contacts and activities, of integrating local and national specificities into a more global framework of analysis. Working on an international scale provides revolutionaries with a means to fight against isolation and the demoralisation that may result from it.

A major imperialist war can only underline the reality that revolutionary activity only makes sense in relation to revolutionary political organisations. As we wrote in our report on the structure and functioning of the revolutionary organisation, “The working class doesn't give rise to revolutionary militants but to revolutionary organisations: there is no direct relationship between the militants and the class”[4]. This highlights the responsibility of the organisations of the communist left in providing a framework, a militant reference point around which individual comrades can orient themselves. In turn the organisations can only be strengthened by the contributions and active support they receive from these comrades.

Amos

 

Rubric: 

ICC meetings on the war in Ukraine

Understanding militarism and decomposition

  • 233 reads

 

The conflict in Ukraine, involving one of the most important imperialist powers on the planet, is a dramatic reminder of the true nature of capitalism: a system whose contradictions inevitably lead to military confrontations and massacres of populations.

In order to fully understand the historical significance of this war, it is essential to place it in a coherent analytical framework. This is why we invite comrades to read or re-read:

Orientation text: Militarism and decomposition | International Communist Current (internationalism.org) [58]

This text, first published in International Review 64, was written in 1990 as a contribution to understanding the significance of another war: the American-led Gulf war that followed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.  It thus appeared after the disintegration of the eastern bloc but before the definitive break-up of the USSR. We are convinced that it remains an indispensable guide to understanding the increasingly irrational and chaotic nature of imperialist wars today. Faced with the bourgeoisie’s propaganda that the world was on the threshold of a “New World Order” of peace and prosperity, the text insisted that “in the new historical period we have entered, and which the Gulf events have confirmed, the world appears as a vast free-for-all, where the tendency of ‘every man for himself’ will operate to the full, and where the alliances between states will be far from having the stability that characterized the imperialist blocs, but will be dominated by the immediate needs of the mo­ment. A world of bloody chaos, where the American policeman will try to maintain a mini­mum of order by the increasingly massive and brutal use of military force”.

This scenario has been amply confirmed by the events of the past three decades. This does not mean that the text is an invariant key to predicting the future. The text itself begins by pointing out that while a solid framework is essential to understanding the evolution of events, it must be constantly tested in the light of that evolution, in order to see which aspects remain valid and which need to be revised. So, for example, while the text is perfectly correct in showing the inability of Germany to constitute the head of a new bloc against the USA, it does not foresee the revival of Russian imperialism or the meteoric rise of China as a world power.  But as we argue elsewhere, these developments became possible precisely because of the prevailing tendency of “every man for himself” that marks imperialist relations in the phase of decomposition. On the global context for understanding the rise of China, see in particular points 10-12 in Resolution on the International Situation (2019): Imperialist conflicts; life of the bourgeoisie, economic crisis | International Communist Current (internationalism.org) [64]

 

Rubric: 

Orientation Text

An internationalist statement from inside Russia

  • 481 reads

ICC Introduction

We are publishing a statement on the war in Ukraine by the KRAS, an anarcho-syndicalist group linked to the International Workers’ Association. We know that, in Russia, any protest at all against the war is being met with ferocious repression by the Russian state, so we salute the courage and conviction of the KRAS comrades in publishing this statement, which is clearly internationalist, denouncing both camps as imperialist and calling for working class struggle against the war.

Our solidarity with the KRAS comrades does not imply that we agree with all the contents of the statement, such as the demand for “an immediate end to hostilities” which seems to be a concession to the idea that the two bourgeois camps can make peace. Even if Russia pulls back from the invasion and bombardment of Ukraine, we have no doubt that hostilities will continue at a lower level, as they have been doing for the past 8 years. In this respect, the statement of the Serbian affiliate to the IWA, the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative, is clearer in denouncing the pacifist illusions being spread by parts of the bourgeoisie: “Faced with the horrors of war, it is very easy to make a mistake and impotently call for peace. However, capitalist peace is not peace. Such "peace" is in fact a differently branded war against the working class. In this situation, a consistent anti-militarist position implies making direct efforts to stop the capitalist war, but at the same time taking control of the situation in the country, and radically changing the socio-economic system - that is, organized class warfare is needed”[1].

We should also point out that these two groups are part of an international anarchist network which is not at all homogenous in its reaction against the war. If for example you go to the web page of the British section, the Solidarity Federation, you will, at the time of writing, find nothing at all about the war, only accounts of local disputes and Solfed activities. The statement on the war by the section in France, the CNT, opposes the inhumanity of the war but makes no mention at all of the need for a response on a working class terrain[2].

The KRAS, by contrast, has a consistent record in defending a proletarian and internationalist position against the foul deeds of “its own” ruling class, and we have published a number of their statements in the past[3].

ICC     20 March 2022

KRAS-IWA against the War

NO WAR! STATEMENT OF THE IWA SECTION IN THE REGION OF RUSSIA

The war has begun.

What people were afraid of, what they warned about, what they did not want to believe in, but what was inevitable – happened. The ruling elites of Russia and Ukraine, instigated and provoked by world capital, greedy for power and bloated with billions stolen from the working people, came together in a deadly battle. Their thirst for profit and domination is now paid with blood by ordinary people - just like us.

The first shot was fired by the stronger, the more predatory and arrogant of the bandits – the Kremlin. But, as always happens in imperialist conflicts, behind the immediate cause lies a whole tangle of disgustingly stinking reasons: this is the international struggle for gas markets, and the desire of the authorities of all countries to divert the attention of the population from the tyranny of "sanitary" dictatorships, and the struggle of the ruling classes of the countries of the former Soviet Union for the division and redistribution of the "post-Soviet space", and larger-scale and global contradictions, and the struggle for world domination between NATO, led by the USA and China, challenging the old hegemon and fastening its "little brother" in the Kremlin to its chariot. Today these contradictions give rise to local wars. Tomorrow, they threaten to turn into a Third World Imperialist War.

Whatever “humanist”, nationalistic, militaristic, historical or any other rhetoric justifies the current conflict, behind it there are only the interests of those who have political, economic and military power. To us, working people, pensioners, students, it brings only suffering, blood and death. Bombing of peaceful cities, shelling, killing people have no justification.

We demand an immediate cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of all troops to the borders and lines that existed before the start of the war.

We call on the soldiers sent to fight not to shoot at each other, and even more so not to open fire on the civilian population.

We urge them to refuse en masse to carry out the criminal orders of their commanders.

STOP THIS WAR!

BAYONET TO THE GROUND!

We call on people in the rear on both sides of the front, the working people of Russia and Ukraine, not to support this war, not to help it - on the contrary, to resist it with all their might!

Don't go to war!

Not a single rouble, not a single hryvnia from our pockets for the war!

Strike against this war if you can!

Someday - when they have enough strength - the working people in Russia and Ukraine will demand the full responsibility from all presumptuous politicians and oligarchs who set us against each other.

We remember: NO WAR BETWEEN WORKING PEOPLE OF RUSSIA AND UKRAINE!

NO PEACE BETWEEN CLASSES!

PEACE TO HOUSES - WAR TO PALACES!

Section of the International Workers Association in the Russian Region  

26.2.22

KRAS-IWA against the War | International Workers Association (iwa-ait.org) [65]

 

Rubric: 

Imperialist conflict in Ukraine

“Humanitarian” propaganda in the service of war

  • 131 reads

Faced with the barbarity of war, the bourgeoisie has always used cynical lies to conceal the murderous responsibility of its own system. The war in Ukraine has not escaped the torrent of propaganda and the shameless instrumentalisation of the suffering it has generated. Not a day goes by without the mass exodus and distress of Ukrainian families fleeing the bombings being shown on all the television channels and front pages of all the newspapers, which are usually so discreet about the misfortunes that capitalism inflicts on humanity. The media have displayed endless images of traumatised Ukrainian children and victims of war.

Humanitarian mystification is a weapon of war

This propagandistic exploitation of the legitimate shock provoked by the atrocious images of bombardments, murder, and mass exile, the war in Ukraine has allowed the bourgeoisie of the democratic countries to recuperate a spontaneous surge of sympathy and compassion to orchestrate a gigantic “humanitarian” campaign around the “citizens’ initiatives” towards the Ukrainian refugees (and even around the ferocious repression of the Russian demonstrators and opponents of the war). They are making use of the distress and despair of the victims of the biggest exodus of populations since the end of the Second World War. Everywhere, “humanitarian corridors” and “citizens' networks” are being organised to help Ukrainian refugees, in order to justify the supply of an immense arsenal of death-dealing weapons intended to “defend a martyred people” from the “Russian ogre”. Even in small villages, collections, donations and all sorts of “initiatives” or performances in solidarity with Ukrainian refugees are organised and encouraged by the authorities.

Behind the tributes to the martyrdom of the “Ukrainian people”, there is the sordid exploitation of real impulses of generosity, exploited by states, all of them warmongers, who don't care about the tragic fate of a population held hostage between Russia's bombing and the forced “general mobilisation” of the Zelensky government. In the eyes of the bourgeoisie, the “Ukrainian people” serve above all as cannon fodder in a “patriotic struggle” against the invasion. The same cynicism explains why the Western bourgeoisie has cast a modest veil over the massacres perpetrated by the Ukrainian government, since 2014, in the Russian-speaking regions of Lugansk and Donetsk, where nearly 14,000 people have been killed in 8 years.

The so-called humanism of European states is a huge lie and a pure mystification. The effort to receive and help refugees is, for the most part, due to the initiative of the populations and in no way due to the states. It is undeniable that, since the outbreak of the war and from the very beginning of the exodus of families, there has been an enormous spontaneous surge of solidarity. There has been a profoundly human effort to bring relief, assistance and help, by offering shelter and providing meals to those suddenly plunged into distress and despair.

But this elementary solidarity is not enough. It is not the product of a collective mobilisation of proletarians on their class terrain. It comes from a sum of individual initiatives that the bourgeoisie never fails to recuperate, to exploit and to instrumentalise for its own benefit. Moreover, these reactions were immediately diverted onto the terrain of bourgeois propaganda to justify the war, to peddle the deadly poison of nationalism and to recreate a climate of Sacred Unity against “the infamous Russian invader”.

The democratic powers of Western Europe had no choice but to open their borders to Ukrainian refugees, unless they were to forcibly block hundreds of thousands of them inside the Ukrainian border. Then their entire anti-Russian war propaganda would collapse. Indeed, if they declare themselves ready to welcome the Ukrainians, it is to ideologically justify a war mobilisation and especially arms deliveries to Ukraine against “Putin's war crimes” and thus to defend their own national imperialist interests.

At the same time, these campaigns serve to conceal the fact that the responsibility for this dramatic situation lies with all states, with the logic of competition and imperialist rivalries that derive from the capitalist system itself. It is this system which has generated the multiple war zones, the impoverishment and mass exodus of populations, the mounting chaos and barbarism.

The odious cynicism of a class of scavengers

All the scavenger states are now shedding crocodile tears over the Ukrainian refugees they claim to welcome with open arms in the name of the so-called “right of asylum”. These fine promises to welcome refugees are nothing but smoke and mirrors. Everywhere, Western European states have introduced reception quotas for migrants fleeing misery, chaos and war. These barefoot refugees are not like the majority of Ukrainians, blond, blue-eyed Europeans; they are most often not Christians, but Muslims. They are sorted like cattle between “economic refugees”, who are totally undesirable, and “war refugees” or “political refugees”. We should therefore sort out the “good” and “bad” refugees...

All this with the blank check of the European Union and its major democracies. Such a selection process, such a difference in treatment is totally abject. In France, for example, less than two years ago, the Macron government sent its cops to forcibly dislodge migrant families who had set up their tents in the Place de la République in Paris; the cops beat up these undesirables and lacerated their tents with knives. Only recently, when Iraqi refugees were knocking on Europe’s door, used as leverage by the Belarusian state, they were smashed against the barbed wire of the Polish border by the armed robocops of the European Union. The “big democracies” were much less welcoming then, despite the very visible suffering of people dying of cold and hunger.

What is the reality behind the variable geometry of this false compassion, this so-called solidarity of states? The bourgeoisie has taken care in most of the “host” countries to create a “special status” for Ukrainians, totally distinct from that of other refugees, in order to create opposition and divisions among the population and the working class. In Belgium, for example, the government decided to give Ukrainians a status quite distinct from other war refugees. While the latter usually first have to undergo a severe screening and control in order to receive a possible authorisation to work in the “host” country, Ukrainian nationals are granted such authorisation straight away and also receive a much higher subsidy than others. Even the amount of their allowance is higher than the minimum wage of “local” employees... This filthy manoeuvre in the service of imperialist propaganda allows the government to create not only antagonism between Ukrainians and other refugees but also to create an additional factor of division, a climate of competition, within the working class[1].

A highly qualified minority of Ukrainian refugees will, to the delight of the bourgeoisie, be integrated into the economy of certain countries, such as Germany, where there is a significant shortage of this type of labour. For the others, the vast majority, their massive influx will pose major problems for the European bourgeoisie, which is incapable of absorbing them. Sooner or later, in the coming period, the vast majority of them will be exposed to the nauseating breath of populist ideology, serving as scapegoats for the social and economic problems that the entire bourgeoisie will then have an interest in highlighting.

Above all, workers must at all costs refuse to be lured by the siren songs of these humanitarian campaigns. They must avoid their ideological traps by categorically rejecting any unity with their exploiters in the face of war. But at the same time, they must fight to defend their own class interests in the face of intensified crisis and war attacks. Only through the international development of this struggle, beyond the borders and conflicts set up by the ruling class, will they be able to fully express their class solidarity with the refugees and all the victims of the growing barbarity of capitalism, offering them a very different perspective: a society liberated from the law of profit and the deadly dynamics of this system.

Wim, 03.04.2022

[1] Some countries, however, have been more “welcoming” than others. The British bourgeoisie in particular still erected all kinds of bureaucratic barriers to Ukrainian refugees entering the country. In another article, we will analyse the differences between the British bourgeoisie and its “friends” on the continent regarding the war in Ukraine.

 

Rubric: 

Ideological campaigns

Trotskyism: beating the drums of imperialist war

  • 269 reads

Since its passage into the bourgeois camp, Trotskyism has never missed an opportunity to attack the consciousness of the working class by pushing proletarians to take the side of one imperialist camp against another during the conflicts that have followed one another since the Second World War. Their position in the face of the military chaos in Ukraine confirms this once again. These watchdogs of capitalism oscillate between openly warmongering positions, calling for support for one of the warring camps, and others, apparently more “subtle” and “radical”, but still justifying the continuation of barbaric militarism. The lies and mystifications of Trotskyism are a real poison for the working class, intended to disorientate it by posing as a form of Marxism!

The position of the Nouveau parti Anticapitaliste (NPA), in France belongs to the category of patent warmongers: “No to the war! Solidarity with the resistance of the Ukrainian people! [...] In situations like the one in Ukraine at the moment, as long as the bombing continues and as long as Russian troops are there, any abstract ‘pacifist’ position such as the call for ‘calm", ‘stop the violence’ or ‘ceasefire’, de facto sets the parties back to back and is tantamount to a denial of the rights of Ukrainians to defend themselves, including militarily.” It could not be clearer! This bourgeois group openly calls on proletarians to serve as martyrs for the defence of the Fatherland. In other words, for the defence of the national capital that feeds itself on their exploitation.

With the same contempt, but with greater subtlety and a perfidious double language, Lutte Ouvrière (LO), in the name of the defence of ‘internationalism’, pretends to condemn a war which “is being waged on the backs of the peoples” in order, in the final analysis, to call on the proletarians to be used as cannon fodder in the name of “resistance to imperialism” and the “the right of nations to self-determination” ... behind their national bourgeoisie. Its candidate in the French presidential election, Nathalie Arthaud, did not hesitate to urge “the workers” to defend the poor little Ukrainian state against “bureaucratic” Russia and “imperialist” America: “Putin, Biden, and the other leaders of the NATO countries are waging a war with the skin of the peoples for whom they share the same contempt”.

As if Zelensky and his clique of corrupt oligarchs were not themselves responsible for the dismemberment of the Ukrainian population and in particular of the working class, whose men are forced to fight for interests that are not their own. Le Mouvement Socialiste des Travailleurs (MTS), a South American member of the so-called Fourth International, denounces both the Russian invasion of Ukraine and NATO interference. But behind this supposedly internationalist position, we find this time the recognition of the “right of the people of Donbass to self-determination”, which is exactly the alibi put forward by Putin to invade Ukraine!

In the UK and the US, the Internationalist Bolshevik Tendency (IBT) develops an even more tricky position: in an article entitled “Revolutionary Defeatism and Proletarian Internationalism”, after recalling Lenin's already ambiguous position that “in all imperialist countries the proletariat must now desire the defeat of its own government” (what he calls “dual defeatism”), the IBT adds: “Dual defeatism does not apply when an imperialist country attacks a non-imperialist country in what is effectively a war of conquest. In such cases, Marxists not only call for the defeat of their own imperialist government but actively favor the military victory of the non-imperialist state.”[1]

It is thus enough to define Ukraine as a non-imperialist state and the choice is quickly made to push the proletarians to the massacre! It is true that the IBT exploits to the absurd a weakness in Lenin’s position on imperialism[2]. The error of the Bolsheviks and the Communist International, who lived directly through the transition from the ascendant period of capitalism to its decadent one, without having drawn all the implications, is understandable. But, after a century of wars of aggression by any country against any other (Iraq against Kuwait, Iran against Iraq, etc.), to peddle the same position is pure mystification!

The whole mystification is based on the bourgeois motto of “the right of the nations to self-determination”, making imperialism a struggle between the “great powers” alone. But, as Rosa Luxemburg stated as early as 1916 in The Crisis of Social Democracy: “Imperialism is not the creation of any one or of any group of states. It is the product of a particular stage of ripeness in the world development of capital, an innately international condition, an indivisible whole, that is recognisable only in all its relations, and from which no nation can hold aloof at will”. The so-called national defence struggles can no longer be part of the demands of the working class. On the contrary they are a real poison for its revolutionary struggle, a mystification aiming, under a revolutionary verbiage, at enrolling the proletarians under the flags of imperialism, whatever the camp they choose to support!

H., 27 March 2022

[1] It is worth pointing out here that the Spartacists, now called the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist), from which the IBT split in 1982, has a similarly profound analysis, but in reverse: in one and the same leaflet, they issue an apparently revolutionary call “to turn this war between two capitalist classes into a civil war where workers overthrow both capitalist classes”, and then tell us what they would do if the war escalates: “should NATO or any imperialist power directly enter this war, it would be an obligation for any revolutionary to side militarily with Russia for the defeat of the imperialists”. With leftism, you always have to read the small print! (Spartacist 4 Supplement, 27.2.22)

[2] With his definition of imperialism as the policy of the great capitalist powers, Lenin was not always clear on the question of imperialism, unlike Rosa Luxemburg.

Rubric: 

Ideological campaigns

Stop the War Coalition: an instrument of anti-American imperialism

  • 181 reads

Stop the War Coalition (STWC), with Jeremy Corbyn as one of its most prominent supporters, presents itself as a movement aiming for peace and to end the war in Ukraine. But reality is far removed from its narrative.

Apart from the fact that peace in capitalism is an impossibility, STWC has always contributed to the increase of the military tensions by taking side in the various wars that have taken place since it was founded in 2001.

With the war in Syria STWC refused to campaign against the indiscriminate bombing of cities and towns by Russian imperialism and against the atrocities of the Assad regime. For years, the coalition has either remained silent, or systematically promoted Assad justifications [1].

Over the annexation of Crimea, Counterfire, a website formed by leading activists in STWC, approvingly published articles which said that if a side had to be picked in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, then it should be Russia:“Russia has more right on its side than the West” [2].

In the run-up to the war in Ukraine, STWC mainly showed understanding towards what it called “the legitimate security concerns of Russia” and underlined the fact that “the conflict is the product of 30 years of failed policies, including major wars of aggression by the USA, Britain and other NATO powers” [3].

At an online teach-in on Saturday 26 March 2022, Vijay Prashad added that NATO is “Washington’s instrument, a trojan horse for US power” [4].

Of course NATO is an instrument of US imperialism, which has provoked its Russia rival into launching this war. But STWC can never take the side of the working class against all imperialist camps: on the contrary, it is always looking for one to support.

Thus, STWC appeals for British imperialism to project a foreign policy that breaks free of Washington and aligns the UK within a European political and military alliance: “There now needs to be a unified effort to develop pan-European security arrangements”[5].

Although it operates very subtly, and does not openly say that it supports Russia, STWC actually functions as a means of leading sincere anti-war sentiment into the dead end of support for anti-American imperialism.

WR

Rubric: 

Ideological campaigns

Brief position statement on the war in Ukraine

  • 148 reads

I agree with the content of the ICC’s leaflet denouncing the war and with the articles ‘Ukraine: the worsening of military tensions in Eastern Europe’ and ‘The ruling class demands sacrifices on the altar of war’.

The strategy of the US to encircle and contain Russia by integrating into NATO the countries of the ex-Eastern bloc has fomented the war and Biden’s insistence that Russia was about to invade, and that the US could not intervene as Ukraine is not a NATO member, forced Putin’s hand. The consequences for Russia are economic ruin and getting bogged down in a permanent war for control of a zone that is economically and militarily vital to its interests. The move made by the US seems to be a sort of replay of the 1991-95 war in the Balkans to oblige bloc cohesion under its leadership (and we recall that the Balkans war began with huge divisions between the US and the other powers, even to the point of supporting different ‘nations’ and gangs. It took around 4 years for the US and NATO to impose some kind of cohesion).

In the current war, the US will be less effected by the economic fall-out and the move has succeeded in putting the European powers under pressure but, whereas in 1991 it was a last-ditch attempt to stop the Western bloc from falling apart, and it did produce at least the semblance of unity for a short time, now the divisions between the main powers are irrevocable: the US has obliged international condemnation of Russia but Germany and France continue to play their own diplomatic card, as does Turkey.

Therefore, it by no means represents the re-constitution of the old Western bloc against an Eastern bloc which is anyway no longer any more than Russia plus a few ‘Stans’. Russia and China are united in their opposition to the US and could possibly agree to dividing up spheres of influence, but they also have conflicting interests which means that they do not a have a solid alliance that could constitute a bloc. The perspective is for a generalised extension of war as each state wrestles against the others in defence of its own interests, making temporary and changing alliances. I do not think that the risk of an escalation of the situation should be underestimated as the ex-Warsaw Pact countries, who share the nationalist illusions and the hatred of Russian domination and are now NATO members, will push for intervention. Can NATO control them and their level of involvement? Can France and Germany have enough influence over Putin to convince him that they have a diplomatic ‘solution’ to the situation?

The ease with which Ukrainian workers and the population generally have been mobilised to be massacred in defence of the fatherland is horrifying. It confirms what the ICC has said in the discussion around the critique of the weak link. We see the damage done by the weight of Stalinism: the belief that the ‘democratic’ west can offer Ukraine a wealthier lifestyle and a valid alternative political system, the refusal of communism. We can expect these illusions to be shared by the populations of the other ex-Eastern bloc countries.

The situation is different in Russia because it requires the population to believe that the invasion is justified by the need to save ‘our Ukrainian brothers’ from fascism. The fact that Putin is exercising a rigid media censorship and repression against pacifist protesters shows that he has paid far too little attention to developing an ideology able to actively mobilise the population for war. Nor have there been any spontaneous pro-war demonstrations (if there had been, Putin would have publicised them). The pro-Putin rally/concert for the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea is difficult to assess. How many were present out of fear and how many were convinced? In the photos of workers outside enterprises spelling out the sign for victory, they look rather confused and coerced. The overall impression is that there isn’t massive support for the war but that the Russian workers are disoriented and don’t know how to respond. They would not accept being called up to fight and die for their country, but although there have been some strikes against non-payment of wages there have not to our knowledge been any strikes directly against the war or demonstrations on a proletarian terrain, and that is the only thing that could stop the war. As the war continues and news reaches Russian workers from friends and relations in Ukraine, there will surely be reflection on the real causes of the war. Could that be an aspect in the development of consciousness, or will it reinforce the sense of impotence? It probably depends on the international level of struggle.

There has been no reaction against the war on a proletarian basis in Western Europe either. Why?

The bourgeoisie has taken advantage of the disorientation of the proletariat, of its difficulty in feeling its identity as a potent class able to take the situation in hand, to launch a huge anti-war campaign on a rigorously reactionary terrain. It has covered all the bases: pacifism, defence of the poor victim against the powerful and bloody madman, humanitarian aid. The media coverage of the war produces anxiety, horror, indignation and above all, the need to DO something to alleviate the suffering and to combat our own sense of impotence; and the answer rings out; demonstrate, send donations, organise fund raising events for Ukraine, get in your van and drive to the border with food parcels or to bring refugees out, cut down on your use of (Russian) gas, display the Ukrainian flag. There’s no need to discuss the issues because it’s obvious which side is suffering and who is guilty. By pushing Russia to attack in such a blatant and destructive way, the bourgeoisie has also launched an attack against the consciousness of the working class internationally.

However, the fact that there is no question of calling for the population to support the sending of troops shows that the bourgeoisie is aware that the proletariat would not be willing to butcher and to be butchered in defence of the fatherland, and while the working class remains undefeated, it is bound to reflect on the world situation. In the coming period it will face even more brutal attacks on its living conditions – which will be blamed on the deadly duo, Covid and Putin – but it will be obliged to defend itself nevertheless and defending itself also means reflection for the proletariat. As it becomes increasingly obvious that war is a constant aspect of capitalism, it will be forced to reflect on why this is so; 3.5 million (so far) refugees fleeing, mostly women and children, separated from husbands and fathers who are fighting in a war that is not only destroying Ukraine but will also devastate the aggressor’s economy and worsen the economic crisis globally; all this because Putin is a madman? The question arises as to why the ‘civilised’, ‘democratic’, ‘powerful’ west is unable to unite to stop it.

I realise that the position of the ICC is that the crisis is the main ally of the proletariat in the development of its consciousness and that a revolutionary wave will not come out of war is it did in 1917, indeed the outbreak of a third world war would necessitate the defeat of the working class, but I do think that war is an important element pushing towards the development of consciousness in the longer term, because it shows starkly the irrationality and destructive nature of capitalism.

I welcome the ICC’s appeal for a statement by the groups of the Communist Left on the war. The working class is facing a dire situation, in the face of which it feels disoriented and impotent. It is a vital responsibility of the Communist Left to give an orientation on the fundamental points: no support to any imperialism; against pacifism; the working class, and only the working class, has a way out of this barbarity.

I welcome the agreement of the Istituto Onorato Damen with the appeal. I don’t agree with the Internationalist Communist Tendency’s affirmation that there is no basis for a common declaration. The proletarian organisations are united in defending the internationalist position on war: maybe the ICT feels that this is too little and too banal precisely because it is shared by all proletarian groups, but for the working class these basic points are by no means obvious, it needs its revolutionary minorities to affirm unitedly that there is a proletarian position on war.

Fraternally, Yvonne
21/03/2022

Rubric: 

Readers' contributions

Correspondence with Anti-Militarist Initiative

  • 213 reads

We are publishing here our response to a message from the Anti-Militarist Initiative[1], a network mainly based in eastern Europe, which is part of a wider questioning of capitalism’s war drive in the wake of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. A whole series of groups, most of them identifying with the anarchist tradition, have been issuing statements and calling for conferences to discuss “what is to be done” about the increasingly catastrophic perspectives opened up by these wars.

We welcome the fact that the AMI blog has published a number of the ICC’s articles on war and internationalism, including an interview with Marc Chirik on revolutionaries faced with the Second World War, and an article showing the profound divergences that the war in Ukraine has revealed within the anarchist “family”, between those seeking to take a clear internationalist stance and those openly advocating the defence of the Ukrainian state[2]. In our reply, we encourage the AMI to elaborate further on the discussions going on in their ranks, and at the same time argue for the need to develop a global analysis which situates these wars in a historical and global context. This alone can enable us to understand the perspectives offered by the capitalist system, and above all the real possibilities for the class struggle and the intervention of revolutionaries faced with imperialist war. Without such an analysis, it is easy to fall into a sterile activism which can only end in demoralisation given its inevitable failure to deliver any immediate results.

 

From the ICC to AMI

Dear comrades,

Sorry for the long delay in responding to you.

You mentioned in your last correspondence that you are discussing:

1) Analysis of escalating conflict in the Mid-East

2) How to organize practical actions against the capitalist wars

3) How to change the inter-imperialist conflicts into a revolutionary

class struggle

 

We would like to send you a few key points as a contribution to your debates.

1) Analysis of escalating conflict in the Mid-East

We have published several articles of analysis of the situation – in case you may not have seen them we put the URL links at the end of our reply.  

From these articles we can highlight a few points. 

The latest Mid-East war, which takes place at the same time as the war in Ukraine (which is soon reaching its third year) and rising tensions in the Caucasus and on the Balkans and elsewhere cannot be disconnected from the global confrontation between the US and China.

But while the US has faced several fiascos in the Middle East (Iraq-Syria-Afghanistan) and has decided to concentrate its forces on preventing China from becoming the world’s leading power (which would means toppling the US) the latest escalation in the Middle East comes somewhat as an “unwanted” war for the US.

In particular, the position of the US in the Middle East has been weakened by the way Israel has been proceeding (imposing the biggest ever exodus of the Gaza population and brutal retaliation through a scorched earth policy).

Also, the US has lured Russia into the war in Ukraine. Russia has been trying to reconquer its lost positions of the time of the existence of the two blocs. It can only do this militarily- as it had already shown through its fierce support to the Syrian regime. This Ukraine-Russia war is now posing increasing difficulties – because it has become a stagnating war, and supporting Ukraine has become increasingly unpopular in the US.

The rise of China has not only been through its enormous economic growth. This has always been accompanied by a long-term strategy of modernisation and expansion of its army; and its Silk Road projects reveal the scope of its ambitions, as well of course as its claim of wanting to integrate Taiwan into China and the policy of establishing a bigger presence in the South China Sea– all of which have been opposed by the Western countries. One project after the other aimed at counter-acting the Silk Road has been adopted by the EU, USA and India.

We can see there is a world-wide sharpening of tensions, engulfing more and more countries, and the latest Middle East war also shows an increasing loss of control by the US over its gendarme (Israel) in the region. With the unleashing of  the First World War, the Second World War, the Cold War and its many proxy wars afterwards, militarism has become the mode of survival of the system and a real cancer eating at its heart.

This dynamic alone already shows that we cannot eradicate this cancer of militarism if the system is not overcome.

At the same time when the leading politicians and “experts” gathered in Dubai at the COP 28 conference, they showed that the ruling class is unable and largely unwilling to take the necessary measures to protect the planet. Leaving the destiny of our planet in the hands of the capitalist class means humanity is signing its death penalty – another urgent reason to overcome the capitalist system.

We will not go into the effects of the economic crisis, famine, the massive exodus of refugees we see in all continents, all of which are expressions of the same impasse that the system has driven humanity into.

In short: we cannot understand what is happening if we only look at one aspect, but we must see the totality and the interconnection between the different destructive components.

How do you see this link and this world-wide evolution? Can we understand events in one country by isolating them from the rest, or do we need to situate them in a global framework.?

What is your analysis? Which debates do you have amongst yourselves on this?

How do you see this link and this world-wide evolution? Can we understand events in one country by isolating them from the rest, or do we need to place this in a global framework?

We have also noticed that while several groups managed to take a clear position on the Ukraine-Russian war, rejecting support for both sides, a crystal-clear internationalist position against the war in Middle East has been avoided or much harder to take for some groups. One reason is that many groups still cling to the idea that there could be something progressive behind the formation of a Palestinian state. We defend the position of the Communist Left, which in continuity with the defence of internationalism at the time of the First World War also defended internationalism at the time of the Second, and against so-called national liberation struggles. The support for the formation of any new state in what the Third International called the “epoch of wars and revolutions” is a totally reactionary idea, only fostering more wars; we must stand for the abolition of all states. The survival of the planet – of humanity – cannot be assured by more states, but requires precisely the abolition of all states and the overcoming of all forms of nationalism.

This was the tradition of the Gauche Communiste de France and Marc Chirik, an interview with whom you published recently.

The question of “practical actions” against capitalist wars

We wish we could do something with an immediate effect against the war. Our indignation and outrage seeing the barbaric acts in Ukraine or in the Middle East understandably make us want to be able to stop the war machinery at once!

But we have to see that indignation is not enough and that it is not realistic to expect the working class to take immediate and decisive, efficient action against the war on a short-term basis. In order to be able to bring this and all the other wars to an end, we have to do nothing less than overthrow the system!

To understand the real scope of the challenge and the necessary solution we need to go back to history.

It is true that the insurrections and revolutions of the working class in 1905 or the First World War arose out of a reaction against the war. But the conditions of that war and those now are very different. In 1914-18 there was the mobilisation of millions of soldiers in the heartlands of capital; this is not the case now. The kind of weapons that were used in 1914-18 were  cannons, increasingly tanks, and also some air-raids and chemical weapons (gas). But in the trenches there was still very a much a fight of “rifle against rifle”. The war stagnated, got entrenched, and there was still the possibility of direct contact (shouting between the trenches). So there could be fraternisation in the trenches after some time.

All this is not the case today. The weapons (bullets, missiles, drones, bombs, planes etc) can travel long-distances, so that the soldiers do not even see the enemy.

In the First World War there was eventually a massive mobilisation by the soldiers - not just desertions. From 1915, step by step. there were more and more protests in the streets and in the factories, because the war meant the intensification of labour, militarisation, enforced “social peace” in the factories, and above all hunger.  Liebknecht gathered 60,000 workers in the Potsdam Square, and more and more street demos and wildcat strikes erupted – with the large numbers of women being drafted into the factories also playing an important role. The whole military front and the home front was breaking apart. In Russia, the workers began to fight against the officers and to fraternise; and there was also a reaction against the war by the many peasants who had been forcefully recruited. The human/social factor played a key role in the war machinery. Still from August 1914 until February 1917, then October 1917, three years of slaughter went by, and even the revolution in Russia could not yet stop the war on the other fronts. It was only in November 1918, with the outbreak of revolution in Germany, that things took a decisive turn to bring the World War to an end. The soldiers and marines of Kiel had been ordered to deliver the “last battle” against Britain, but the sailors realised that it would mean their deaths.  So they had to fight directly for their lives, for their survival. The combination of a beginning of fraternisation at the military front and the eruption of struggles at the home front forced the bourgeoisie in Germany to react.

These conditions do not exist today. More and more soldiers are recruited in Ukraine and Russia, and there has not yet been any significant class reaction against the war – even if there has been a massive exodus of men from Ukraine and much more from Russia to escape forced recruitment. A massive open resistance against the war in Russia has still to come. At the moment it seems that there is not yet any major food shortage, or collapse of the economy. It is a specificity of the Russian situation that the Russian economy has been so highly dependent on oil and gas exports, so the sanctions by the West/USA have forced Russia to sell more to other countries – which has helped Russia to win time and has helped the Putin regime to avoid imposing a massive economic attack on the working class. But this gain of time is not likely to last forever and the reaction of the working class in Russia, which would be a key factor in opposing the war, remains an unknown, unpredictable factor. The working class in Ukraine is confronted even more with an omnipresent nationalism. Any resistance against the war is likely to be crushed by the Zelensky regime.

This is why we have to look at the working class in the West. Because the working class in the West cannot be mobilised for the war directly, - most workers would refuse having to sacrifice their lives for the war – and because the NATO countries have carefully avoided putting boots on the ground because they know the working class and maybe other parts of the population in the West would not support this. Thus the West has above all delivered the whole arsenal of weapons necessary to prolonging the war.

Paradoxically enough, the reactions in the US in the Republican party are very revealing. There is a rising opposition to continuing financing the war in Ukraine, because they say this would be at the expense of the US economy. They also feel that the working class is not willing to sacrifice its lives and go hungry for the war in Ukraine.

Another factor has to be taken into consideration. In Russia in October 1917 the working class managed to overthrow a relatively weak and at that time still isolated bourgeoisie. The White counter-offensive with the civil war only began a year later.

But the German bourgeoisie was a much more experienced and more powerful bourgeoisie and they were able to bring the war to an end “overnight” in November 1918, when the sailors of Kiel began to move and soldiers and workers‘ councils began to be set up, taking the road of the Russian Revolution.

So the German proletariat was facing a much more cunning, intelligent bourgeoisie, which got the support from the other bourgeoisies as soon as the proletariat began to raise its head in Germany.

Today the working class faces an increasingly rotten, decomposed capitalist class, but despite their rottenness they are more determined than ever to unite their forces if their deadly enemy, the working class, raises its head. And they can also count on the trade unions, the left parties etc. to sabotage the workers‘ struggles. Thus an immediate dynamic towards a radicalisation of struggles against the war cannot yet be expected. 

How to change the inter-imperialist conflicts into a revolutionary class struggle?

Where does the key lie?

The key still lies in the hands of the working class.

We think that the workers in Britain, France, more recently in the USA, have begun to offer the proof. Driven by inflation or other strong attacks, the workers in many countries have begun to stand up and break a decades-long period of passivity and disorientation in the face of the unfolding of events. This is why we talk about a “rupture” in the class struggle[3].

And we think this capacity of the working class to defend its economic interest is the PRECONDITION for developing its strength, its self-confidence, through which the class can recognise itself, and understand clearly that there are two major classes opposing each other.

In this sense the economic defensive struggles are absolutely necessary. It is during these economic struggles, where the workers must learn to take the struggles into their own hands (which they have not done for a long time), where they must learn again to identify their real enemies (are these the migrants, the refugees – as all the populists and the right wing claim – or those who exploit them?) and their class brothers and sisters who can develop a class solidarity by uniting and taking up the struggles themselves.

And it’s through the economic defensive struggles the workers must again learn to discover that the problems are much more deeply rooted within the system and are not the fault of some rotten and greedy banker (as the Occupy Movement of 2011 tried to make us believe), and also that all the other threats to the survival of humanity are basically rooted in the system. So this process of politicisation needs the actual fire of the class struggle, but the discussions going on in different layers of the class can be propelled and catalysed by these open struggles.

Rosa Luxemburg insisted in November/December 1918 on the indispensability of much more pressure coming from the factories and economic struggles, once the “soldiers’ revolution” had the wind taken out of its sails by the decision of the bourgeoisie to end the war.

This has been the dynamic of the class struggle since 1905, when it became clear that political and economic struggles must merge together in one big stream: the mass strike.

And by coming together as a class through fighting for their economic interests, the working class can also block the destructive influence of all kind of divisive factors such as “identitarian” issues (around race, sexuality, etc). By being forced through its economic struggles to look for the solidarity of all other workers to oppose the state and be stronger than the capitalist class through the extension and  unification of the struggles, the working class can play the role of a magnet in society, offering a perspective to all those oppressed by capital- not by dissolving itself in an anonymous mass of individuals, but by acting as a united force against the ruling class.

If we insist on the need for the class to develop its economic struggles, it is not that we are running away from our responsibility towards the war. But it is the only way to develop an efficient response. To believe an immediate solution can be found through some kind of minority “action”  is a dead-end, and will ultimately demoralise those who take part in them.

It is indispensable to understand, as Pannekoek insisted in his famous book World Revolution and Communist Tactics of 1920, that the proletarian revolution is the first revolution in history which depends entirely on the collective, conscious and massive action of the working class. It cannot count on any other force than is own strength – its consciousness and its solidarity, its capacity for unification.

To create illusions about an easy and quick way out is misleading and demoralising. This is why we have rejected the Internationalist Communist Tendency’s scheme of setting up committees against the war. In our view these committees confuse the essentially political role that revolutionary organisations have to play in the face of imperialist wars. We have written several articles about this[4].

Shortly after the start of the Ukraine war, we also took position on this question in an article on Militarism and Decomposition, from which we quote here:

"8) In the past we have criticised the slogan of ‘revolutionary defeatism’. This slogan was put forward during the First World War, notably by Lenin, and was based on a fundamentally internationalist concern: the denunciation of the lies spread by the social-chauvinists who claimed that it was necessary for their country to gain a victory before allowing the proletarians of that country to engage in the struggle for socialism. In the face of these lies, the internationalists pointed out that it was not the victory of a country that favoured the struggle of the proletariat of that country against their bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, its defeat (as illustrated by the examples of the Paris Commune after the defeat by Prussia and of the 1905 Revolution following the failure of Russia’s war against Japan). Subsequently, this slogan of ‘revolutionary defeatism’ was interpreted as the wish of the proletariat of each country to see its own bourgeoisie defeated in order to favour the fight for its overthrow, which obviously turns its back on a true internationalism. In reality, Lenin himself (who in 1905 had hailed Russia's defeat by Japan) first of all put forward the slogan ‘turn the imperialist war into a civil war’ which constituted a concretisation of the amendment which, together with Rosa Luxemburg and Martov, he had presented and adopted at the Stuttgart Congress of the Socialist International in 1907: ‘In case war breaks out nevertheless [the socialist parties] have the duty to intercede to bring it to a prompt end and to use with all their strength the economic and political crisis created by the war to stir up the deepest popular strata and precipitate the fall of capitalist domination’.

The revolution in Russia in 1917 was a striking concretisation of the slogan ‘transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war’: the proletarians turned against their exploiters the weapons the latter had given them in order to massacre their class brothers in other countries. This being said, as we have seen above, even if it is not excluded that soldiers could still turn their weapons against their officers (during the Vietnam War, there were cases where American soldiers ‘accidentally’ shot their superiors or lobbed fragmentation bombs into the officer’s tents), such facts could only be of very limited scale and could not constitute in any way the basis of a revolutionary offensive. For this reason, in our propaganda, we should not only not put forward the slogan of "revolutionary defeatism" but also that of ‘turning the imperialist war into a civil war’.

More generally, it is the responsibility of the groups of the Communist Left to take stock of the position of revolutionaries in the face of war in the past by highlighting what remains valid (the defence of internationalist principles) and what is no longer valid (the ‘tactical’ slogans). In this sense, if the slogan of ‘turning the imperialist war into a civil war’ cannot henceforth constitute a realistic perspective, it is necessary on the other hand to underline the validity of the amendment adopted at the Stuttgart Congress in 1907 and particularly the idea that revolutionaries have the duty t'o use with all their strength the economic and political crisis created by the war to agitate the deepest popular strata and to precipitate the fall of capitalist domination’. This slogan is obviously not immediately feasible given the present weak situation of the proletariat, but it remains a beacon for communist intervention in the class"[5].

As to what this means for the role of revolutionaries, who are necessarily a small minority, we have tried to develop this in our Joint Declaration against the war and our Appeal to the groups of the Communist Left, which you may have seen[6].

We would be glad if you would let us know about the discussions in your ranks, and we are of course eager to discuss with you directly. If you have any material you recommend that we read – please send it to us.

Hoping that soon we will get a direct exchange off the ground.

Waiting for your answer...and once again sorry for a late response.

Communist Greetings

the ICC

10.12.2023

 

Selected texts

Capitalism leads to the destruction of humanity... Only the world revolution of the proletariat can put an end to it [76] International Review 169

Massacres and wars in Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, Azerbaijan... Capitalism sows death! How can we stop it? (international leaflet) [77]

The reality behind the bourgeois slogans [78], World Revolution 399

War in the Middle East: another step towards barbarism and global chaos [79]

Militarism and Decomposition (May 2022) [40]

Report on imperialist tensions [80], International Review 170

 

 

 

[2] The revolutionary movement and the Second World War: interview with Marc Chirik, 1985 [82]; Between internationalism and the “defence of the nation” [42]. The AMI’s own article Anarchist antimilitarism and myths about the war in Ukraine [83] is a very clear response to the arguments of the “anarcho-defencists”.

[3] See our article The struggle is ahead of us! [84], World Revolution 398

Rubric: 

Internationalists and imperialist war

A balance sheet of the public meetings about the Joint Statement by groups of the Communist Left on the war in Ukraine.

  • 321 reads

Following the publication of the Joint Declaration by groups of the Communist Left (International Communist Current, Internationalist Voice, and Istituto Onorato Damen)[1] [89], two public online meetings were held by these groups, one in Italian and one in English, to discuss and clarify the need for the Joint Declaration and the tasks of revolutionaries in the face of imperialist war and new world conditions. The meetings were held in a serious and cordial atmosphere; differences of opinion did not prevent a camaraderie or lively discussion. The significance of the Joint Declaration is that it follows the spirit of the Zimmerwald Conference of 1915, where revolutionaries were able to issue a joint internationalist declaration in the face of World War I. In the 1930s, on the other hand, Italian and Dutch left-wing communists opposed the Spanish War but were unable to issue a joint declaration. Similarly, during the Sino-Japanese War, World War II and the Korean War, internationalist communists failed to issue a joint statement. It is undeniable that today communist left groups do not have the influence that revolutionaries had in 1915. However, a common voice is necessary, not for its immediate consequences, but for the perspective of future battles. It is not possible to reflect the discussions of both sessions in a short article, but we want to give a summary of the topics discussed.

Italian-language meeting

In the Italian-language meeting, all participants, without exception, assessed the nature of war as imperialist and stressed the need to defend internationalism, that is, not to support any of the imperialist camps. Rejecting any pacifist illusions, they saw the working class and the class struggle as the only force capable of opposing the war. The participants, without exception, stressed the importance of the Joint Declaration. The participants believed that although the situation today is not comparable to that of 1915 and the revolutionaries do not have the influence they had on the working class in 1915, the spirit of the Zimmerwald conference, like a compass, is still valid today. The Zimmerwald conference is a reference for revolutionaries, to which they refer in their struggle against the imperialist war. Only one participant declared the reference to the Zimmerwald conference invalid, arguing that the currents that signed the joint declaration do not have the influence of Lenin or Luxemburg on the working class. Others responded that the importance of a joint declaration lies in a common voice of positions internationalists that the currents of the communist left had previously been unable to express in the face of the war.

The fact that other groups of the Communist Left refused to sign the joint declaration reflects the weakness of the proletarian political milieu. The majority of participants deplored the refusal of other left communist groups to refer to Lenin on the need for a common response, despite theoretical differences. In Zimmerwald, participants had differences of opinion and analysis, but this did not prevent them from making a statement in unison. The majority of participants disagreed with the reasons given by Internationalist Communist Tendency[2] [90] for not signing the joint statement. While some of the participants talked about continuing the discussion with ICT to encourage them to sign the joint statement or, at least, to develop joint action with them, others stressed that we should avoid getting into controversial discussions and move on without paying attention to others. In any case, all participants in the meeting shared the view that the No War But the Class War proposal drafted by the ICT represents a huge step backward from their own political tradition, effectively delegating to the working class in general the functions that the revolutionary vanguards should be performing instead.

The participants stressed that it is not possible to fight the war without fighting capitalism. After the war, inflation increased not only in the periphery of capitalism, but also in the metropolitan centers, and thus the cost of living for the proletariat increased, which means that the standard of living of the working class decreased. The living and working conditions of the working class, with the outbreak of the ongoing imperialist war, are bound to worsen, and may induce, in the more or less near future, the proletariat to retaliate against the continuous attacks launched by capital.

Another point of discussion stressed that the struggle of the proletariat can develop in a revolutionary direction only if it is based on the historical continuity of the positions of the Communist Left. Of course, this does not mean that only left communist groups can support these positions, but that they must serve as a point of reference to show the way forward. It was agreed during the discussion that it is the task of revolutionaries to work to build the future international and internationalist party of the proletariat, without which all eventual struggles of the working class will inevitably be doomed to defeat. And this is perspective of the declaration against imperialist war signed by the various adhering groups. 

Meeting in English

In the English-language session (in which the comrades of the IOD could not participate), as in the Italian-language session, participants unequivocally assessed the nature of the war as imperialist and, rejecting any peaceful illusions, they saw the working class and the class struggle as the only force that could counter the war. At the meeting, except for the ICT/CWO delegate, participants stressed the importance of the Joint Statement. One participant stated that although he did not fully agree with the Joint Statement, he still supported it. As in the Italian meeting, the participants, with the exception of the ICT/CWO delegate, also put forward that, although the situation today was not comparable to that of 1915 and that revolutionaries did not have the influence they had in the working class in 1915, the spirit of the Zimmerwald Conference has to act as a compass, which is still valid today, a reference point revolutionaries in the struggle against imperialist war.

At the meeting, the ICT (CWO) delegate had the opportunity to state their reasons for refusing to sign the joint statement. He put forward their reasons but their arguments not only did not convince the audience but also fuelled further discussions. The ICT/CWO representative stated that not signing the statement was not a matter of principle, but the ICT/CWO considered the criteria for those who should sign was too narrow. According to the comrade, they want to bring together those who agree with the No War but the Class War initiative. By signing the Joint Statement the ICT would be implicitly endorsing the ICC’s views on parasitism. They work with Controverses and International Group of the Communist Left, and the ICC does not; the ICC has labelled comrades who have been fighting for years as parasites. May be the ICT can pull them back into the Communist Left through the NWBCW.

Several participants who were former members of the ICC rejected the ICT/CWO representative's statement that every militant who leaves the ICC is labelled as a parasite, stating that they have never been deprived of any activity and that comrades of the ICC are always very open to discussion and solidarity. They emphasised that the problem of parasitism is related to behaviour that was not proletarian.

Some participants intervened with criticisms of the NWBCW initiative; however the presidium asked participants to postpone the discussion about NWBCW to the next public meeting. In the discussions, it was argued that the internationalists could not issue a joint statement in the face of the Spanish War, World War II, the Korean War, etc. Today the adoption of the Joint Statement was a blow to sectarianism in the proletarian political milieu and a step forward. At the beginning of the meeting, some comrades who had given credit to the ICT for refusing to sign the Joint Statement became convinced by the discussion of the necessity of the latter. A comrade said in the conclusions that he believed that the discussion was constructive, even if the differences between the ICC and the ICT were significant. These differences need to be articulated more and developed in common discussions. Another participant stated that although he disagreed with some of the CWO's positions, he was convinced that the Communist Left would not be able to carry out its historic tasks without the participation of groups such as the Bordigists or the ICT. According to him it is a pity that they did not understand the importance of this action on the Ukraine war.

The prevailing view at the meeting was that although only a minority of all the groups of the Communist Left signed the Joint Statement, the latter would still become a point of reference in the left communist tradition, to which other groups and militants could refer.

Internationalist Voice

Istituto Onorato Damen

International Communist Current

June 15, 2022

Rubric: 

Internationalists and the war in Ukraine

A barbaric war intensifies

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[96]

While Russia is continuously pouring carpets of bombs on Ukrainian cities, at the end of the G7 meeting, organised in the bucolic setting of the Bavarian Alps, on 28 June, the representatives of the great "democratic" powers chanted the words of Macron in chorus: “Russia cannot and must not win!”, eager to express their fake indignation about the horror of the fighting, the tens of thousands of deaths and millions of refugees, the systematic destruction of entire cities, the execution of civilians, the irresponsible bombing of nuclear power stations, and the considerable economic consequences for the entire planet. By feigning fear, this band of cynics also sought to conceal the very real responsibility of the West in this massacre, in particular the destabilising action of the United States which, in its attempts to counter the decline of its world leadership, did not hesitate to stir up chaos and barbarism at the gates of the historic centre of capitalism.

The Ukraine trap set by US imperialism for Russian imperialism

Today the US and the other powers in the West present themselves as champions of peace, of democracy, and of poor innocent Ukraine faced with a shameful attack by the Russian ogre. If the horrors committed by Russian imperialism are more difficult to hide, neither the US nor Ukraine can be seen as “white knights”. On the contrary, they have played an active role in the unleashing and perpetuation of the massacre.

The Ukrainian bourgeoisie, corrupt to the bone, had already sabotaged the Minsk agreement of 2014, which implied, among other things a certain autonomy for the Donbass and the protection of the Russian language in Ukraine. Today it is acting in a particularly intransigent ‘fight to the end’ manner in the face of Russia; certain factions even envisage the reconquest of Crimea.

But US policy is far more hypocritical and calculating. In the early 1990s, the United States had “informally” promised Moscow that it would not take advantage of the implosion of the Eastern bloc to extend its influence to Russia's borders. However, it did not hesitate to integrate the former Eastern Bloc countries into its sphere of influence one by one, just as it did not hesitate to massively arm Taiwan and to support its attempts to distance itself from Beijing after promising to respect the 'one China' principle. The US policy towards Ukraine has nothing to do with the defence of the widow and the orphan or of democracy, nor with beautiful humanitarian principles that no country hesitates to smear in blood and mud for the defence of its sordid imperialist interests.

By challenging Putin to invade Ukraine (and pushing him to do so by making it clear that it would not intervene), by dragging him into a full-scale war, the US has, in a Machiavellian manoeuvre, momentarily scored important points in the imperialist arena, as the US strategy is above all aimed at countering the irretrievable decline of its world leadership.

The US bourgeoisie was thus able to restore NATO's control over the European imperialisms. While this organisation seemed to be in perdition, "brain dead" according to Macron, the war in Ukraine allowed a return to the forefront of this instrument of subordination of European imperialisms to US interests. Washington exploited the Russian invasion to call the protesting European "allies" to order: Germany, France and Italy were forced to break off their trade links with Russia and to hastily launch the military investments that the United States had been demanding for 20 years.

Similarly, the US is dealing decisive blows to Russia's military power. But behind Russia, the US is basically targeting China and putting it under pressure. The basic objective of the USA’s Machiavellian manoeuvre is to continue the containment of China, which began in the Pacific, by weakening the Russian-Chinese relationship. Russia's failures faced with US military aid to the Ukrainian army is a clear warning to Beijing. China has reacted in an embarrassed manner to the Russian invasion: while disapproving of the sanctions, Beijing avoids crossing the red line that would lead to American sanctions against China. Moreover, the Ukrainian conflict makes it possible to block a large area, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, which is indispensable for the deployment of the "New Silk Road", and this is undoubtedly a significant objective of the American manoeuvre.

US policy leads to intensified chaos and militarism

Regardless of which faction of the bourgeoisie is in government, since the beginning of the period of decomposition, the US, in its desire to defend its declining supremacy, has been the main force for the spread of chaos and warlike barbarism through its interventions and manoeuvres: it has created chaos in Afghanistan and Iraq and fostered the rise of both Al Qaeda and Daesh (Islamic State).

In the autumn of 2021, they consciously stirred up tensions with China over Taiwan in order to rally the other Asian powers behind them. Their policy in Ukraine is no different today, although their Machiavellian strategy allows them to present themselves as a peaceful nation opposing Russian aggression. With its overwhelming military supremacy, the US is fomenting warlike chaos as the most effective barrier against the challenge of China. But far from stabilising the world situation, this policy intensifies the barbarity of war and exacerbates imperialist confrontations on all sides, in a chaotic, unpredictable and particularly dangerous context.

By putting Russia on the ropes, Washington is intensifying the threat of chaos and war in Europe. The war in Ukraine is leading to increasingly calamitous losses for Russia. However, Putin cannot stop the hostilities at this stage because he needs trophies at all costs to justify the operation domestically and save what can be left of Russia's military prestige, without giving up on removing this highly strategic territory from American influence. On the other hand, the longer the war goes on, the more Russia's military power and economy will be eroded. The United States has no interest in encouraging a cessation of hostilities, even if it means cynically sacrificing the population in Ukraine. Under the present conditions, the carnage can only continue and the barbarity expand, probably for months or even years, and this in particularly bloody and dangerous forms, such as the threat posed by "tactical" nuclear weapons.

By restoring the yoke of NATO, the US is also exacerbating the imperialist ambitions and militarism of the European bourgeoisies. If the European countries were able to nourish the illusion after 1989 that they could conduct their imperialist policy based essentially on their economic assets, with the Trump presidency, and even more clearly with the aggressive policy of the Biden administration, based on the military superiority of the United States, which is now taking shape in Ukraine, they are becoming increasingly aware of their military dependence and therefore of the urgency of reinforcing their armament policy, even if, at first, they cannot distance themselves too clearly from NATO. Germany's decision to massively rearm, doubling its military budget, is a major imperialist development in the medium term because, since the Second World War, Germany had maintained only modest armed forces.

The dissensions within NATO are already appearing between an “intransigent” pole that wants to “bring Putin to his knees” (USA, Great Britain and Poland, Baltic countries) and a more “conciliatory” pole (“all this must end in negotiations”, “we must avoid humiliating Russia”). By increasing the pressure on China, the US bourgeoisie is also increasing the risk of new military confrontations. The Ukrainian crisis has dangerously destabilising consequences for the imperialist position of the main challenger to the US.

Beijing continues to pursue a policy of formal support for Putin without any compromising commitments, but the war is having a heavy impact on its “New Silk Road” and on contacts with the Central European countries that China had managed to seduce. This is happening at a time when the slowdown of its economy is becoming more and more apparent, with growth currently estimated at 4.5% of GDP. While the United States does not hesitate to accentuate these difficulties and to exploit them in its confrontation with Beijing, the situation exacerbates tensions within the Chinese bourgeoisie and accentuates the risk of an acceleration of confrontations on the economic and even military level.

The incalculable consequences of the war in Ukraine

The absence of any economic motivation for wars was obvious from the beginning of the decadence of capitalism: “War was the indispensable means by which capital opened up the possibilities for its further development, at a time when such possibilities existed and could only be opened up through violence. In the same way, the capitalist world, having historically exhausted all possibility of development, finds in modern imperialist war the expression of its collapse. War today can only engulf the productive forces in an abyss, and accumulate ruin upon ruin, in an ever-accelerating rhythm, without opening up any possibility for the external development of production.” [1]

The conflict in Ukraine is a vivid example of how war has not only lost its economic function, but how the rush to military chaos is increasingly reducing the strategic benefits of war. For example, Russia has embarked on a war in the name of defending Russian speakers, but it is massacring tens of thousands of civilians in predominantly Russian-speaking regions, while turning these cities and regions into ruins and suffering considerable material and infrastructural losses itself. If, at the end of this war, it captures the Donbass and South-East Ukraine, it will have conquered a field of ruins (the price of reconstruction is currently estimated at 750 billion euros) and a population that hates it. It will have suffered a significant strategic setback in terms of its great power ambitions.
As for the United States, in its policy of containment of China, it is being led to encourage a cynical “scorched earth” policy, leading to an immeasurable explosion of economic, political and military chaos. The irrationality of war has never been more apparent.

This tendency towards the increasing irrationality of military conflicts goes hand in hand with the increasing irresponsibility of the ruling factions coming to power, as illustrated by the adventure of Bush Junior and the “Neo-Cons” in Iraq in 2003, the policies of Trump from 2018 to 2021 or the faction around Putin in Russia. They express the exacerbation of militarism and the loss of control of the bourgeoisie over its political apparatus, which can lead to an adventurism that is fatal, in the long run, for these factions but, above all, perilous for humanity.

At the same time, the consequences of the war for the economic situation of many countries are dramatic. Russia is a major supplier of fertiliser and energy, Brazil depends on fertiliser for its crops. Ukraine is a major exporter of agricultural products, and prices of commodities such as wheat are likely to rise. States such as Egypt, Turkey, Tanzania or Mauritania are 100% dependent on Russian or Ukrainian wheat and are on the verge of a food crisis. Sri Lanka and Madagascar, already over-indebted, are bankrupt. According to the UN Secretary General, the Ukrainian crisis risks “pushing up to 1.7 billion people (more than one fifth of humanity) into poverty, destitution and hunger”. The economic and social consequences will be global and incalculable: impoverishment, misery, hunger...

The same is true of the ecological threats to the planet. The fighting in Ukraine, a country with Europe's third-largest nuclear fleet, in a region with an ageing industry, a legacy of the “Soviet” era, presents enormous risks of ecological and nuclear disasters. But more generally in Europe and in the world, while officially ‘clean, green energy transition’ remains the priority, the need to get rid of dependence on Russian fuels and to respond to soaring energy prices are already pushing the major economies to seek to revive the production of coal, oil, gas and nuclear energy. Germany, the Netherlands and France have already announced measures in this direction.

The unpredictability of the present confrontations, the possibilities of their sliding out of control, which are stronger than during the Cold War, mark the current phase of decomposition and constitute one of the particularly worrying dimensions of this acceleration of militarism. More than ever, the current war highlights the only alternative: “socialism or the destruction of humanity”. Instead of death and capitalist barbarism: socialism!
 

R. Havannais, 4 July 2022

 

[1] Report to the conference of July 1945 of the Gauche Communiste de France, cited in 50 years ago: The real causes of the Second World War [37], International Review 59

 

 

Rubric: 

Five months of the “special operation”

A giant step into barbarism

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The war in Ukraine continues to unleash its foul torrent of murder, destruction, rape and suffering, including on refugees trying to escape the fury of the belligerents. The daily images of unrestrained barbarity on the doorstep of Western Europe, the historic centre of capitalism, are so unbearable, so apocalyptic and massive; the stakes on a global scale are so colossal, if only because of the nuclear risks that the conflict poses to humanity, that it is clear that this war represents a remarkable worsening of the global chaos that directly involves and affects all the major imperialist powers.

If the war in Ukraine is the most central and caricatural expression of the dynamic of generalised decay into which capitalism is dragging the world, in particular because it is an event consciously unleashed by the bourgeoisie that will durably and seriously affect the whole of society, it is also part of a convergence of disasters and contradictions that the ruling class is increasingly unable to control:

  • the Covid-19 pandemic is far from being under control, as evidenced by the massive and extremely brutal lock-downs in Beijing and Shanghai in China, and the explosion of new 'waves' due to new variants in Europe;
  • the economic crisis is now combining inflation, the disorganisation of production chains and the ineluctable slide of the world economy towards recession, which had been momentarily contained by the record injection of subsidies by the Federal Reserve and the ECB;
  • the number of refugees fleeing barbarism and misery in Africa, Syria, Libya, Latin America, Asia and now Europe has continued to rise dramatically;
  • the inability of the bourgeoisie to achieve the objective of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5°C is so obvious that even the most optimistic propagandists no longer believe it is possible.

And we could add many more stigmata, such as the explosion of urban violence, individuals falling back on themselves in the face of poverty, the multiplication of delusional "conspiracy theories", corruption, etc.

The war in Ukraine, however, marks a new and enormous plunge into barbarism. In 1991, shortly after the fall of the USSR, in his speech to the nation on the Gulf War, Bush senior promised the advent of a "new world order"; the bourgeoisie sought to persuade the exploited that capitalism had definitively triumphed and bright days lay before us. 30 years later, the promises have vanished, confirming, every day a little more, the stakes that were clearly outlined by the 1st Congress of the Communist International in 1919: "A new epoch is born, the epoch of the breakdown of capital, its internal disintegration, the epoch of the communist revolution of the proletariat...The old capitalist ‘order’ has ceased to function; its further existence is out of the question. The final outcome of the capitalist mode of production is chaos".

The war in Ukraine, a giant step into generalised barbarism and chaos

For those who expected a Blitzkrieg-like invasion, starting with the Russian bourgeoisie itself (or at least Putin's clique), as was the case with the Crimean offensive in 2014, these four months of war have shown, on the contrary, that the conflict is going to be a long one. The initial failure of the Russian invasion led to the systematic destruction of cities, such as Mariupol, Severodonetsk or now Lyssychansk, reminiscent of the annihilation of cities such as Grozny (Chechnya), Fallujah (Iraq) or Aleppo (Syria). During the Second World War, the destruction of cities became more and more massive and systematic even though the outcome of the conflict was certain: Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, working-class cities in Germany.  In the current conflict, it took only a few weeks to see images of enormous destruction and razed cities.

Thus, contrary to those who claim that war would open up a new cycle of capitalist accumulation, thus signifying the possibility for capitalism to find a "solution" to the crisis, reality shows that war is only a destruction of productive forces, as the Communist Left of France already said in its Report on the International Situation in 1945: “War was the indispensable means for capitalism to open up possibilities for further development, at a time when these possibilities existed and could only be opened up by means of violence. Likewise, the collapse of the capitalist world having historically exhausted all the possibilities of development, finds in modern war, imperialist war, the expression of this collapse which, without opening up any possibility of further development for production, does nothing but to plunge the productive forces into the abyss and to accumulate ruins after ruins at an accelerated rate” . This destruction beginning with the working population itself. Initial estimates of casualties put the death toll in Ukraine at over 50,000, and the number of refugees at around 6 million; Zelensky speaks of 100 Ukrainian soldiers being killed each day and 500 wounded (most of them crippled). On the Russian side, the losses are higher than those of their entire campaign in Afghanistan. Factories, roads and hospitals are burnt to the ground. According to the Kiev Faculty of Economics, $4.5 billion worth of civilian infrastructure is destroyed every week.

The bombing and military occupation near Chernobyl led to fears of radioactive contamination, but the scale of the problem of war and its environmental impact goes far beyond that: "chemical plants were bombed in a particularly vulnerable country. Ukraine occupies 6% of Europe's territory, but contains 35% of its biodiversity, with some 150 protected species and many wetlands" (ANCRAGE). In general: “after the 1918 armistice, tens of tons of shells abandoned by the belligerents continue to release their chemical compounds in the subsoil of the Somme and the Meuse. Millions of mines scattered in Afghanistan or Nigeria permanently contaminate agricultural land and condemn the population to fear and misery, not to mention the atomic arsenal which represents an ecological threat unprecedented in the history of humanity.” Industrial war is the matrix of all pollution (Le coût écologique exorbitant des guerres, un impensé politique [97] - Le Monde)”.

The war’s impact on the economic crisis

As for the impact of the war on the economic crisis, if in the previous crisis of 2008 many workers lost their jobs and some their homes because they could not pay their mortgages, this war directly raises the prospect of famine in many parts of the world, and not only because of the interruption of trade in grain and seeds to the periphery: the threat of hunger directly concerns the most economically fragile populations in the US and other central countries. The bourgeoisie cannot continue to use debt to compensate for the decline in production that has worsened sharply since the pandemic, especially with sustained high inflation and the pressure of militarism brought on by the war in Ukraine. Biden, who had promised $30 billion in support for the economy, is now saying, like all the governments in Europe, that “the good times are over”.

Yet they have no qualms about increasing military spending exorbitantly (which will also keep inflation up). Macron has just declared that France has entered “a war economy”. In Germany, Scholz's social democratic government, with the participation of the Greens, has approved an additional budget of 100 billion euros for rearmament, a historic step not seen since the Second World War. Japan plans to increase its defence budget to 2% of GDP, making it the world's third largest military spender, behind only China, which has increased its spending by 4.7% since 2020 ($293 billion this year) and the US ($801 billion).

Another dimension of the war's impact on the economic crisis is the acceleration of the process of de-globalisation (even if the war itself is not the cause), primarily through the significant damage done to China's geostrategic military and commercial project, its “New Silk Road”. The pandemic had already greatly accelerated the disorganisation of world production and of the trend towards “relocalisation”, but the war has dealt a major new blow: trade routes across the Black Sea were severely disrupted and many companies were forced to leave Russia. The national bourgeoisies of the most de-industrialised countries are already presenting the trend towards relocation as an “opportunity” for employment and the national economy, but the World Trade Organisation has already warned of the dangers of such a process: the race to accumulate raw materials in each nation, far from reducing the insecurity of the economy, risks further disrupting supply chains and significantly slowing down world production. In sum, an increase in every man for himself at the economic level. One need only recall the acts of piracy that states engaged in during the “war of masks” to see this. All of this contributes to the logistical crisis of shortages, producing the apparent paradox that a crisis that originates in widespread overproduction creates shortages of goods. The consequences of the deepening crisis for the working class are already taking the form of the most brutal precariousness and redundancies due to company failures.

It is difficult to know what the state of the pandemic is in Russia and Ukraine. As in 1918 with the so-called “Spanish flu”, the war has certainly considerably worsened the ravages of the infection. However, it is not unreasonable to think that if the bourgeoisie was already unable to contain the pandemic before the war, as witnessed by the fiasco of the Sputnik vaccine, the situation has become totally uncontrollable with the deplorable hygienic conditions imposed by the war and the destruction of the health infrastructure. But the pandemic, although ultimately the product of the deterioration of the system and its sinking into decomposition (which heralds new pandemics in the future), is a phenomenon in the life of capitalism that the ruling class did not consciously decide to unleash. By contrast, war is the result of a conscious decision by the bourgeoisie, its only response to the collapse of capitalism!

The war in Ukraine is an imperialist war

As Rosa Luxemburg had already analysed during the First World War, in the decadence of capitalism, all countries are imperialist. Imperialism is the form taken by capitalism at a particular moment of its evolution, that of its decadence. Each national capital defends its interests tooth and nail on the world stage, even if they do not all have equivalent means at their disposal.

Bourgeois propaganda in Ukraine and in the West denounces the offensive and war crimes of the dictator Putin and, on the Russian side, the “Nazi threat” to Ukraine, just as in the First World War the Allied side called for enlistment against the militarism of the Kaiser, while the opposing camp claimed it was countering the expansionism of the Tsar. During the Second World War, each side also put forward its “legitimate” justifications: anti-fascism against Hitler or the defence of Germany against the crushing weight of war “reparations”.

The bourgeoisie also insists that Ukraine is a small country, a victim of the Russian bear. But behind Ukraine are NATO and the US, and Russia is also trying to seek support from China. As such, the war between Ukraine and Russia is part of a larger conflict between the USA and its declared challenger, China. At the root of the current war is the United States’ desire to reassert its world hegemony, which has been in decline since the collapse of the Stalinist bloc and, more recently, since Bush Jr.’s fiasco in Iraq in 2003 and the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Echoing the way that Bush (Senior) lured Saddam Hussein into a trap in 1991, the US government reported the mobilisation of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, but made it clear that if the threat of invasion were to occur, the US would not intervene, as in Crimea in 2014. For its part, the Russian government could not tolerate Ukraine joining NATO, after the integration into the alliance of a large part of its historical sphere of influence (i.e. Poland, Hungary and the Baltic States). It therefore had no choice but to take the American bait with the initial idea of swift action to veto Ukraine's ambitions. However, US support for Zelensky and its pressure on NATO members to move in the same direction embroiled Russia in a longer than expected war of attrition.

The US government is thus trying to expose the weakness of Russian imperialism, which is not up to the standard of a major world power in the 21st century, and to exhaust it as much as possible. At the same time, the United States has succeeded in imposing its discipline on the European powers, especially in the face of the ambitions towards independence of French imperialism (Macron had declared that “NATO is brain-dead”) and Germany, which have had to absorb the decrease in Russian gas deliveries and the closure of the Russian market for their own goods following the sanctions, but also the cost of the rearmament decided under American pressure. But above all, behind the Ukrainian conflict, the US strategic objective is to weaken its main challenger, Chinese imperialism. The US has succeeded in making it difficult for China to support Russia, making the main Asian power appear an unreliable partner. In addition to also blocking off a very important region for the New Silk Road project, America has made a show of force and “international diplomatic strategy” that is a very explicit warning to Beijing.

In sum, the US has once again not hesitated to unleash a level of chaos that heralds even greater storms in the future, in order to defend its sordid imperialist interests and global leadership. The weakening of Russian imperialism, in the long run, could lead to the disintegration of Russia into various small nuclear-armed imperialisms. Similarly, the bringing of the European powers to heel actually leads to their rearmament, especially Germany, something which has not happened since its defeat in the Second World War. Xi Jinping is seeing his new Silk Roads threatened with blockage and its “strategic ally”, Russia, in deep trouble. The real victim of this war, however, is neither Ukraine, nor Russia, nor China, nor Europe, but the working class, which is being asked, in the West but also all over the world, to make immense sacrifices in the name of the war effort and, at the front, to make the supreme sacrifice of life itself.

The proletariat faced with the war in Ukraine

Since the “Orange Revolution” in 2004, the working class in Ukraine has been trained to take sides in the conflicts between factions of the bourgeoisie, and, since 2014, has been largely mobilised on the front against Russia. Today, workers are sent to the battlefield to serve as cannon fodder, while their families desperately flee the war when they are not slaughtered in cities, hospitals or train stations. The Ukrainian working class is today totally defeated and unable to give a class response to the situation, let alone raise the revolutionary perspective as in Russia or Germany in the First World War.

In Russia, contrary to the speculations of the international press, Putin has not succeeded in imposing a general mobilisation of the population for the war. The proletariat had already avoided being drawn directly into the defence of Russia in the nationalist conflicts that followed the break-up of the former USSR. But the fact that it could not play a conscious role in the collapse of Stalinism in 1990 and got carried away by the democratic campaigns about the “death of communism” weighs on the working class in all the Eastern countries, as the democratic illusions that appeared during the social movement in Poland in 1980 illustrated very clearly. In Russia, the weight of democratism weighs even more heavily now because of the propaganda of the bourgeois factions opposed to Putin's authoritarianism. If isolated minorities like the KRAS heroically defend an internationalist position against the two belligerent camps, the working class in Russia is not in a position to take the initiative of an anti-war struggle in the immediate situation either, although the concrete situation of the struggles, discussions and awareness of the workers in Russia remains to a large extent a mystery.

All this does not mean, however, that the world proletariat is defeated. Its main battalions in Western Europe, where the historical and recent experience of the main struggles against capitalism has accumulated, where its minorities defend and develop their revolutionary political programme, have not so far been dragged into the war. Here too, the anti-communist campaign has been a key factor in the decline in the combativity and consciousness of the proletariat, a loss of class identity; although since 2003 we have seen various occasional attempts to develop a combativity, and the emergence of politicised minorities (even if they remain very few in number).

However, the bourgeoisie of the central countries is leading a major ideological campaign to support the Ukrainian struggle against the dictator Putin, notably with the slogan: “Arms for Ukraine”. The combined effects of the fragility of the working class since 1990 and this campaign lead to demobilisation and a feeling of powerlessness in the face of the gravity of the situation. That's why we shouldn't expect an immediate working class reaction to the war in these countries either.

Even in the First World War, the workers' response that ended the war was the consequence of struggles in the factories at the rear against the misery and sacrifices imposed by the war. In the present situation too, the bourgeoisie is demanding sacrifices in the name of war, starting with energy savings and continuing with wage cuts and redundancies. The working class, especially in the central countries, will be forced to fight to defend its living conditions. It is in this struggle that the conditions for the proletariat to regain its identity and its revolutionary perspective will be forged. In the present situation, this struggle will have to lead to an understanding of the relationship between the sacrifices at the rear and the supreme sacrifice of life at the front.

The intervention of revolutionary groups (and the minorities around them) in the class is indispensable. In the First World War, the internationalist conference in Zimmerwald, censored and initially barely known to the class as a whole, represented a beacon for the world proletariat in the midst of the darkness of the battlefields. Although today the revolutionary groups are much less recognised in the class than they were then, and the situation is different (no generalised war and no defeat of the proletariat), the Zimmerwald method and the defence by the left fractions of the tradition and historical principles of the proletariat which social democracy had betrayed are still very relevant today. The defence of proletarian internationalism and of the heritage of the communist left is indeed the one called for by the "Joint Statement of the groups of the Communist Left" which we are publishing on our website and this International Review.

Rubric: 

The war in Ukraine

Britain plays its part in the imperialist slaughter

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When Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kyiv on 9 April it was clear that British imperialism was determined to increase its contribution to imperialist conflict in Ukraine. Alongside the declaration that "We are stepping up our own military and economic support and convening a global alliance" the UK is going to send 120 armoured vehicles and new anti-ship missile systems. This was on top of an additional £100 million worth of military equipment, including more Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles, 800 anti-tank missiles, helmets, night-vision devices and body armour announced a day before. The further economic support took UK loan guarantees to £770m. None of this is on the scale of US or German assistance, but it prompted the Ukrainian president's office to say "The UK is the leader in defence support for Ukraine. The leader in the anti-war coalition. The leader in sanctions against the Russian aggressor."

This ties in with the number of times that Ukraine President Zelensky has acknowledged support from British imperialism. At the moment, in line with NATO policy, Britain draws the line at providing planes, tanks or ground troops, and they have not backed the idea of enforcing a no-fly zone. However, in the words of Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, Britain will be providing weapons to Ukraine so they can "fight every street with every piece of equipment we can get to them". Although this is all supposedly intended for "defensive purposes", and full details of military supplies have not always been provided (for "security reasons"), Britain is keen to provide much of the "lethal" weaponry that Ukraine has demanded.

Britain’s contribution to the encirclement of Russia

In the build-up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, British imperialism, in its own right, and as part of NATO, played a full part in the moves against Russian imperialism. Since the break-up of the USSR Russia has been further threatened by the US and its European allies as they confront Russian influence by gradually integrating countries of eastern Europe into NATO and the EU. The North Atlantic Cooperation Council, for example, was established in 1991 to forge links between eastern European countries and members of NATO. The possibility of Ukraine becoming part of NATO would bring the US-dominated alliance right up to the Russian border. Defence and security links between Ukraine and members of NATO started soon after Ukrainian independence. Links with the West became closer after Russia's takeover of Crimea in 2014

British imperialism has been assisting the Ukrainian military in one way or another since 1991. This is not on the same scale as the US, but still in the same spirit of NATO backing for Ukrainian capitalism against their neighbour to the East. Whatever tendencies there have been for Britain to assert its independence from multinational alliances, Britain has remained a faithful member of NATO right from its foundation. However, while the British government wants to present itself as the loyal deputy of the US, this has not always been ratified by Washington. When President Biden came to Europe this spring, he refused to have a one-to-one meeting with Johnson, who was also excluded from other meetings. This diplomatic humiliation followed Germany’s dramatic announcement that it would be doubling its military budget. British imperialism wants to use the war to compensate for the damage done by Brexit, but its incompetence in managing the political game has left it relatively isolated, despite all the talk of “convening alliances”.

Labour is also a war party

While focussing on the Tory government, it would be wrong to give the impression that the British bourgeoise is divided over support for Ukraine. Of course, there are the criticisms over leading Tories' behaviour during the pandemic, but not only does the Labour Party back the Tory government to the hilt on the war in Ukraine, they boast of the role of Ernest Bevin and the Labour government in the foundation of NATO in 1949. The British bourgeoisie, across all the main political parties, has been united over the war in Ukraine. Whatever differences the left of the Labour party might harbour, these have been shelved for the duration under pressure from the Labour leadership. The only difference of any significance has been the criticism of the Tory government's treatment of Ukrainian refugees and the difficulties they have in getting past British bureaucracy, especially in comparison to the process in much of the rest of Europe where visa requirements have been widely waived.

If anything, the Labour Party has tried to prove itself more bellicose than the Tories, for example in wanting an increase in defence expenditure to be an item in Sunak's spring budget statement. The Chancellor declined the opportunity to raise military spending, but Labour said that they would support any future increases regardless. Shadow defence secretary John Healey gave an example of Labour's previous keenness to fuel British imperialism's war machine when he said “Ministers must respond to new threats to UK and European security, just as Labour in government did after the 9/11 terror attacks with the largest sustained increase in defence spending for two decades.”

In all the war propaganda we are thrown back to the lies of previous imperialist conflicts. In the First World War British imperialism, including the Labour Party, justified the slaughter of millions because of the aggressive attacks on 'plucky little Belgium'. Today support for the war in Ukraine is justified by the invasion of the Russian war machine. Britain wants to be a global player, but cannot fulfil this role. It can, however, contribute to the carnage in Ukraine. British imperialism's contribution to the massacres in Iraq, to the war in Afghanistan, to the current bombing of Yemen with British weapons sold to Saudi Arabia all show that British capitalism enthusiastically embraces the barbarity of imperialist war. Specifically, on the war in Yemen, it seems possible that the UK government could go ahead with a plan to designate the Houthi rebels as a terrorist group which could worsen the already catastrophic humanitarian situation, since importing food, medicines or fuel into Yemen would then be condemned as aiding terrorism. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been urging Britain to follow this policy. A deal with Saudi Arabia is certainly on the cards since the UK government has been trying to persuade them to increase oil supplies to compensate for a blockade on Russian oil.

The disruptive role of populism

One element that does distinguish the British bourgeoisie is the continuing influence of populism within the political apparatus. At a time when there is broadly a united bourgeoisie, populism inevitably tends to be divisive. For example, when Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was asked in February whether she would back anyone who wanted to volunteer to fight in Ukraine, she said "Absolutely, if people want to support that struggle, I would support them in doing that." This was in contrast to the advice on the Foreign Office website which said that those who travel to eastern Ukraine to “fight, or assist others engaged in the conflict” could be prosecuted on their return to the UK. Subsequently, Boris Johnson, other minsters, and the head of the defence staff confirmed that joining Zelensky's international legion against Russia is illegal.

Another intrusion of populism that had the potential to derail the unity of the bourgeoise was the speech of Boris Johnson where he characterised the war as being "between freedom and oppression", going on to say that “And I know that it’s the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom, every time. I can give you a couple of famous recent examples. When the British people voted for Brexit … It’s because they wanted to be free to do things differently and for this country to be able to run itself.” The row continued along predictable lines, (Labour saying it was "insulting to the Ukrainian people, … insulting to the British people" etc) but, even if it now seems to have blown over it is a reminder that populism remains a disruptive factor in British politics. You only have to look at the plan to deport illegal refugees 4000 miles away to Rwanda to see the degree to which irrationality and inhumanity are an integral part of the decision-making process of the British bourgeoisie's political apparatus. The inhuman nature of deportation is not new, what is new is the deportation by a Western European country to a distant African country with a repressive regime and poor infrastructure to receive them in already crowded camps.

Sanctions are a weapon of war and their main victim is the working class

The British bourgeoisie is also proud to participate in the sanctions imposed on Russia. Because of the role of finance in the British economy, it has the potential to make a serious contribution to this aspect of the conflict with Russia. In evidence given to the House of Commons Treasury Committee, there was discussion on what the impact would be on the Russian economy, looking at areas such as energy, banking, other financial services, and the so-called 'oligarchs'. There was agreement that it was wrong to focus on which member of the ultra-rich in Russia were sanctioned, as the purpose of sanctions was to affect the economy as a whole. In other words, they were well aware that the way that the Russian economy was being hit, with inflation, shortages, the devaluation of the rouble etc, would cause most economic pain to the poor, those on fixed incomes or low wages. As for the impact of sanctions closer to home, in Britain, the Committee concluded "It is not possible yet to quantify that cost. But we believe that, on the information currently available, it is most definitely a cost worth bearing in order to aid Ukraine in opposing Russian aggression. However, that cost, combined with the already present pressures in the UK on the cost of living, will impact the whole country, and will be felt particularly by low-income households."

The situation is therefore the same in Britain as in Russia: sanctions will have most effect on those on lower incomes.  The Labour Party is all in favour of this. On the day of the Russian invasion, Keir Starmer said "the British public have always been willing to make sacrifices to defend democracy on our continent, and we will again." Labour has been an integral part of British imperialism since the outbreak of the First World War, so it is entirely appropriate to hear them, more than a century later, giving reasons for the working class to make sacrifices to pay for the waging of imperialist conflict.

In response to growing reports of atrocities in Ukraine committed by the Russian army, Britain says they should be investigated as war crimes. But as we saw earlier, the past military exploits of British imperialism show that it is no stranger to the butchery of warfare. This is the class that talks of the 'fight for freedom' as it contemplates the use of various weapons of mass destruction. The militarism and hypocrisy of the British bourgeoisie is only one expression of capitalism as a global system that threatens the future of humanity. The coronavirus pandemic showed the acceleration of the decomposition of capitalism. The war in Ukraine confirms it.

Car, 18/4/22

Rubric: 

War in Ukraine

Imperialist and criminal propaganda!

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In all wars, the classic and unavoidable weapons of states are those of mass propaganda, manipulation and disinformation. Since the First World War, the great democratic powers have been a veritable crucible for mind control, a laboratory for imposing the sacred National Unity, for persuading the population, in particular the proletariat, to support the war and consent to the sacrifices that go with it. Manipulating opinion remains the central objective of the ruling class to hide its crimes and prepare new ones.

The imperialist war in Ukraine is no exception to these ignoble enterprises of manipulation and propaganda. The democratic powers, especially in Western Europe, are the ones who have to provide the most subtle and elaborate propaganda in order to try to legitimise their bloody projects to a proletariat which has the greatest experience of struggle and one of the highest levels of education in the world[1].

Manipulation and propaganda around the conflict in Ukraine

On the eve of the conflict in Ukraine, as always, heads of state and governments vowed, hand on heart, to do everything to “preserve peace”. As Russian troops massed on Ukraine's border, Putin claimed to have no warlike intentions and spoke of mere “military manoeuvres”. He had also committed to a partial withdrawal of his troops before his meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said he was “delighted” with the news. Even after the start of the invasion, Putin has never spoken of a “war”, a word that is totally prohibited in Russia, but of a “special operation”.

As for Joe Biden, who announced Putin's plans in advance, specifying that the United States would not intervene in the event of a conflict, thus giving the green light to the master of the Kremlin to throw his troops and his country into a trap, he appeared to the world as a man of peace, wishing, in his words, to “give diplomacy every chance”. 

Zelensky was also a champion of peace, a “peaceful victim”, courageous, determined and “full of heroism”. For example, in his speech to the French National Assembly on 23 March, he spoke to a crowd of members of parliament who had been won over and seduced in advance: “[...] How can we stop this war? How can we bring peace to Ukraine? [...] We must act together, put pressure on Russia together to seek peace.”

Behind the speeches about peace, the image of a small country as the victim of the invaders stirred emotions and the will to fight the unspeakable Putin. The trap of a “defensive war” was set from the start. Zelensky could then forcibly mobilise cannon fodder on Ukrainian soil, men aged 18 to 60, to “defend the homeland”, constantly begging “arms for Ukraine” to prove Western “solidarity”, shamelessly exploiting the distress of the refugees for purely political and warlike ends.

In 1914, similar ideological tricks had already been used by the Entente bloc against the Triple Alliance powers.

Germany was then considered as the only one “responsible” for the war because of its invasion of little Belgium, a country taken over by the “Krauts”, by a “barbarian horde”.

French President Poincaré, who had been frantically preparing for war behind the scenes with Russia and his British ally, was at the same time a champion of peace, as shown in his speech of 14 July 1915, in which, in the middle of the war, he said: “For many years our hard-working democracy had enjoyed the work of peace. It would have considered as a criminal, or as a fool, any man who would have dared to nourish bellicose projects”. The height of cynicism and hypocrisy! A few days later, on 19 July, in a speech in the Reichstag, the German Chancellor said practically the same thing: “We did not desire war, [...] it was peace that made us prosperous”. His misfortune had been to attack first!

Like a remake, in September 1939, the invasion of Poland was presented once again as the attack by a “wolf' against an “innocent lamb” and not as the result of a logic specific to capitalism and imperialism. The “wish for peace and “victimhood” are classics!

Even Hitler declared himself in favour of peace! In 1938 in Berlin, he declared to the French ambassador his desire that Franco-German relations should be “peaceful and good”. And the diplomat Von Ribenttrop often repeated that “the Führer does not want war”[2]. It was also in the name of “peace” and ‘anti-fascism’ that the proletariat was drawn into the war.

Since no one “wants war”, even though it is the way of life of decadent capitalism, each side must present it as the fault of the opponent. Thus, for Putin, the fault lies with the Ukrainian regime, made up of “Nazis”, “persecutors of Russian-speaking minorities” who are fighting “against freedom and democracy”. Of course, he castigates another “responsible” party, the NATO forces that have surrounded him for decades and that seek to “weaken Russia”.

The propaganda of Zelensky, and the Western govenments who support him militarily, makes things all the more pernicious and dangerous for the populations and the proletariat of the West, since the “peaceful Ukraine” appears well and truly as the one “strangled by the Russian ogre”. Indeed, among all the imperialist gangsters involved in this conflict, Putin is the one who drew first.

As soon as the war started, he went from being a persona non grata to a “bloodthirsty madman”. Demonisation (facilitated here by Putin's personality and his Stalinist background) is also a great classic of propaganda![3]

During the First World War, the German army and its soldiers were also presented as monsters, accused of raping, torturing and coldly slitting the throats of children[4].

The current war and its images, the exploitation of corpses lying on the ground, the pictures of devastated cities, the multiplication of international investigations into “war crimes”[5] committed by the Russian army, the almost total silence on the exactions of the Ukrainian army on the Western side, the accumulation of crude montages on the Russian side, all this accompanied by all the cyber-propaganda that fills the mind with smoke, testify to an intense and daily information war.

As a result, even if this war is considered worrying by the Western populations, a majority is insidiously led to support the sending of “weapons for Ukraine” in order to “teach the invader a lesson”. In other words: fuel the war and the massacres in the name of a “legitimate” and “defensive” response!

All states are imperialist

In this absurd, tragic, and barbaric adventure that has brutally struck Europe, the great Western democratic powers now play the beautiful role of prosecutor. They appear to be the “peace-lovers”, confronted with a sort of fait accompli that does not depend on their own will, but on that of one man, the cold, cynical, suicidal dictator Putin.

In reality, as Rosa Luxemburg already pointed out, all states, big or small, are real brigands who only act to defend their sordid imperialist interests, as our international leaflet also reminds us: “since the beginning of the 20th century, permanent war, with all the terrible suffering it engenders, has become inseparable from the capitalist system, a system based on competition between companies and between states, where commercial warfare leads to armed warfare, where the worsening of its economic contradictions, of its crisis, stirs up ever more warlike conflicts. A system based on profit and the fierce exploitation of the producers, in which the workers are forced to pay in blood as well as in sweat”[6].

Obviously, if the responsibility of Putin's rivals is more difficult to perceive behind the smokescreen of Western propaganda, it is no less present. The action of these imperialist powers within NATO, supplying arms to Ukraine in large quantities, fuelling a war that is becoming entrenched, amply demonstrates their responsibility in the irrational logic of militarism, and the massive planning of destruction. At the forefront of these gangsters, actors in the acceleration of disorder and chaos, the imperialist state led by Biden has moved in a very clever way. By trapping Russia and the Western European allies with his statements, implicitly giving Putin a green light, he expressed the Machiavellianism of his strategy.

The act of pushing the adversary to initiate hostilities himself is a classic ploy. This was already shown in Alfred Rosmer's comment on the First World War, when he quoted a former senator, Jacques Bardoux, on the provocations that led Germany to attack in 1914: “When is a war offensive or defensive? Epithets are open to a thousand interpretations. They are the expression of shifting and changing opinions. When a diplomat is clever, the war he provokes is never offensive. He seems to be defending himself when he really attacks”.[7]

Through the cordon sanitaire that NATO has built around Russia since the collapse of the USSR, through the desire to bring new countries like Finland and Sweden into the Alliance, the Biden administration, like its ad hoc and forced Western European allies, has the “appearance of defending itself when it really attacks”. That is its strength. But at the same time, this criminal enterprise is an expression of a more fundamental historical weakness, since the dynamics of militarism bring chaos, irrationality and destruction.

In fact, all the leaders of the imperialist powers who cry out in horror at Putin's abuses themselves have blood on their hands and end up further accelerating the deadly dynamics of world disorder. When the Second World War broke out, these same allied powers were by no means the "knights of freedom" they claimed to be, but barbaric actors of imperialism defending their own sordid interests: “the West did not intervene to destroy Nazism or to avert the threat of a totalitarian regime. It was the European balance that was at stake”[8]. In reality, this “European balance” was nothing more than the balance of power between imperialist gangsters.

Today, Europe is threatened with greater chaos in this vast scramble. Whatever they say, it is the great world powers that are at the forefront of all this. The same ones who in the past committed the worst exactions, always in the name of “good”. Think of the “strategic bombings” of 1943, when the Allies dropped carpets of incendiary bombs on the working-class districts of Dresden and Hamburg, killing at least 250,000 people. More recently, let's not forget that American forces razed entire cities like Falluja in Iraq in 2004.

Today, the atomic threat and the terrifying hype about nuclear weapons should not make us forget that those who first used them in Japan were appealing to the same values of “peace”, “freedom” and “democracy”. While they were in no way militarily cornered, these same thugs had seriously considered in the 1950s vitrifying Korea with nuclear weapons.

There is no room for illusions: decaying capitalism can only bring war and chaos, destruction, crisis, epidemics and ecological disaster. The proletariat must not forget the brainwashing it has undergone during all the wars of the past. Today, it must absolutely reject the siren songs of all the belligerents. If we let ourselves be tempted by their war-mongering propaganda, we may think that the arms supplies to Ukraine are a “solution”, even if unsatisfactory, because the proletariat is not able to stop the war immediately. However, far from sparing suffering, this option can only fuel the destructive forces for which both sides are responsible. But by drawing the lessons of the past, revolutionaries arm themselves to denounce the lies of the bourgeoisie in order to assist the proletariat to avoid being caught up in the lies of the ruling class and to develop its own class resistance against this murderous system.

WH, 11 June 2022

 

[1] Contrary to the proletariat in Ukraine which has been defeated and conscripted, and to the proletariat in Russia, which is extremely fragile and vulnerable, the proletariat in Western Europe, although unable, at the moment, to put an end to the conflict, is not ready to accept the sacrifice of thousands of victims every day.

[2]Anne Morelli, Principes élémentaires de la propagande de guerre (2001).

[3] This was the case, to take a few examples, with Saddam Hussein, who was transformed overnight into the “Butcher of Baghdad”, with Milosevic in Serbia during the War in ex-Yugoslavia, and now with Putin.

[4] International Review 155, “The birth of totalitarian democracy”. https://en.internationalism.org/content/13316/birth-totalitarian-democracy [98]

[5] A legal concept that legitimises “ordinary” barbaric warfare by making us forget that war itself is a real crime of capitalism.

[6] See our international leaflet: “Capitalism is war, war on capitalism! [99]”

[7] Alfred Rosmer, Le mouvement ouvrier pendant la Première Guerre mondiale. It should also be pointed out that the “defencist” argument was used by all the social democratic traitors in 1914 in order to disarm the proletariat and enlist it in the war.

[8] Philippe Masson, Une guerre totale (1990)

Rubric: 

Ideological campaigns

War in Ukraine, pandemic, environmental disaster, economic crisis... Only the proletariat can offer a future to humanity

  • 173 reads

For more than four months now, war has been raging at the gates of Europe. Four months of this macabre spectacle with its thousands of victims, its millions of exiles, its scenes of destruction and desolation. Four months, then, since carnage and devastation made their grand return to Europe, accelerating the spiral of war into which capitalism is sinking. This odious manifestation of capitalism's plunge into chaos and barbarism is accompanied by the resurgence of the Covid pandemic, where a “seventh wave” is currently sweeping across Europe without the slightest sanitary measure being envisaged by the different states, with the bourgeoisie leaving the populations to their own fate. Similarly, the chain of heat waves, such as the one that hit India and Pakistan last March and April, are a reminder that the cataclysms linked to climate change are increasingly threatening humanity. The most extreme effects (heat waves, droughts, floods, tsunamis, etc.) are even becoming the norm and will soon make human life impossible in entire regions.

We could add many other aspects to this accumulation and the simultaneity of disasters which demonstrate only one thing: the accentuation of the putrefaction of capitalist society and the total incapacity of the ruling class to counteract this historical trend. These three major illustrations are enough to affirm that capitalism has become an obsolete mode of production, incapable of guaranteeing a future for humanity other than that of its own destruction.

Capitalism is war

Since the beginning of the 20th century, war has been inseparable from capitalist society. It is the precise result of the historic crisis of this mode of production, as the Gauche Communiste de France pointed out in the wake of the Second World War: “having historically exhausted all the possibilities of development, and finding in modern warfare, imperialist warfare, the expression of this collapse which [...] engulfs the productive forces in an abyss and accumulates ruin upon ruin at an accelerated pace”. But unlike climate disasters or the emergence of the pandemic, militarism and the proliferation of wars are the product of the deliberate action of the bourgeoisie, which is incapable of settling its imperialist rivalries other than by the resort to arms and spilling the blood of the exploited.

The war in Ukraine is no exception to this totally irrational logic[1] and even constitutes a deepening of militarism and its barbaric consequences, as shown by the scale of the fighting, the tens of thousands of deaths, the systematic destruction of entire cities, the execution of civilians, the irresponsible bombing of nuclear power stations and the considerable economic consequences for the entire planet. The explosion of the military budgets of all the states, and the adhesion of Sweden and Finland to the basket of crabs that is NATO, are in no way marks of the famous “If you want peace, prepare for war” so hypocritically peddled by the bourgeoisie. On the contrary, the swelling of military arsenals and, more generally, the accentuation of the war economy in all directions will only increase tensions between states and are already laying the foundations for future conflicts.

A considerable worsening of the economic crisis

While the world has been suffering for nearly three years from one of the most deadly pandemics in history, and while the economic crisis and the environmental disaster are worsening, all states are spending vast amounts on arms. More than ever, the economy is at the service of war, at the service of the unbridled production of tools of destruction without the slightest economic consistency. For a gun, a missile or a fighter plane does not generate any additional value and is a pure waste, a dead loss from the point of view of capital on a global scale. Therefore, the increase in arms production, the possible conversion of strategic sectors to the military industry, the indebtedness that all this will provoke and the decrease in investments in other sectors of the economy, will considerably alter world trade and further aggravate the economic and social conditions suffered by the exploited.

In addition, the direct effects of the war itself are already being felt by a large part of the world's population: exorbitant inflation, the total disorganisation of production and supply chains, measures of economic retaliation between rival states. All these consequences of the imperialist war are hitting the exploited all over the world hard, not least with the shortage of many essential goods. Faced with this catastrophic situation, the bourgeoisie has no other proposal than the endless ideology of sacrifice, like the European governments which, faced with Russian gas cuts, exhort the population to tighten their belts by practising “energy sobriety”, all in the name of a pseudo-solidarity with the Ukrainian people. This despicable propaganda relayed by the big energy companies shows all the perfidy and cynicism of the ruling class, which never gives up trying to make the working class pay for its crisis. But the lies of the ruling class pale in comparison with the harsh reality that billions of people suffer in their flesh on a daily basis. The proof is that the world has never been so hungry. Today, capitalism and its horrors are plunging more than 2 billion people into a food crisis and almost 400,000 million people are on the brink of starvation.

The future is in the hands of the proletariat

As we have affirmed on several occasions over the last few months, the proletariat, deprived of its class consciousness, is for the moment incapable of recognising itself as a social force that can oppose war and put forward a revolutionary perspective. Faced with inflation and shortages, revolts have thus broken out on a terrain of struggle totally alien to the methods and objectives of the proletariat, as in Sri Lanka where the anger of the population has been instrumentalised to oust the president in office, thus serving as a mass to be manoeuvred in the confrontations between bourgeois cliques. In Ecuador, thousands of “indigenous” people, grouped on ethnic bases and cut off from the struggle of the working class, have also set themselves the objective of overthrowing the ruling power... for the benefit of another bourgeois clique.

However, in recent weeks, the first glimmers of workers' reactions to the increasing exploitation in the workplace and the deterioration of living conditions, as a result of soaring prices, have been expressed in the heart of global capitalism. At the end of June, more than 50,000 railway workers in Britain were on strike to demand higher wages. In Germany, Spain and France, strikes also broke out in the air industry and railways, based on the same demands. If these defensive struggles remain for the moment very embryonic, isolated from each other and contained by the unions, who are deploying their arsenal of sabotage through division between different sectors, the fact remains that they illustrate a great deal of anger in the ranks of the workers as well as a potential for the development combativity in the period to come.

But above all, these movements fully demonstrate that the economic crisis remains the best ally of the proletariat, the most favourable terrain on which it can develop its solidarity and its international unity, and gradually recover its identity and the consciousness of its revolutionary potential. It is only through these long and tortuous struggles that it will be able to extricate humanity from capitalism’s spiral of destruction and thus show the way to communism.

More than ever the future belongs to the working class!

Vincent, 8 July 2022.

 

[1] For further developments on the subject of the irrationality of the war see, for example “Orientation text: Militarism and decomposition [58]”, International Review No. 64 (October 1990). In International Review 168 we will publish “Militarism and Decomposition, May 2022” which brings the subject up to date.

Rubric: 

Decomposition of capitalism

“Anarchists” who forget the principles. Statement by KRAS-IWA

  • 266 reads

ICC Introduction

In March 2022 we published an initial statement on the war in Ukraine by the anarcho-syndicalist group KRAS in Russia, a courageous expression of internationalism opposed to both sides of this imperialist war [1]. We have also published an article on the incoherence of the anarchist response to the war, which includes genuine internationalist positions like those of KRAS, but also openly bourgeois statements in favour of the military defence of Ukraine, and even direct participation in the Ukrainian war effort by anarchist ‘militias’[2]. The Black Flag group in Ukraine, for example, has established its own platoon within the territorial defence forces set up by the Ukrainian state. And while talking about anarcho-communism in the future, it cannot hide its support for the nation right now: “thanks for support and for the fight for freedom in some Ukrainian battalions. Truth wins, so Ukraine will win”[3]. And within Russia itself, there are anarchists like the Anarchist Fighter group which claims to be against the Putin regime and even calls for the defeat of Russian imperialism in this war, but which also argues that “As for Ukraine, its victory will also pave the way for the strengthening of grassroots democracy—after all, if it is achieved, it will be only through popular self-organization, mutual assistance, and collective resistance”[4]. This is a shameless distortion of the slogan of “revolutionary defeatism” raised by Lenin in the First World War: when Lenin insisted on the need for class struggle against the Tsarist regime, even if it meant the military defeat of Russia, this never meant supporting the opposing camp led by German imperialism. Whereas the support for Ukrainian victory offered by these anarchists can only mean support for the NATO war machine.

The present statement by KRAS makes it clear that the “defencists” are wholly on the side of capitalist order. This includes some anarchists in Ukraine who equate the internationalism of the KRAS, its opposition to the nationalism of both camps, with support for the Putin regime and its brutal war. In reality, these elements, by publishing the names and addresses of KRAS militants, have directly exposed them to repression by the Russian security forces. We publish this new statement of KRAS as an elementary statement of solidarity with these comrades [5].

 

[1] internationalist-statement-inside-russia [43]

[2] internationalism-defence-nation [42]

[3] Libcom [100]

[4] nl.crimethinc.com/2022/02/26/ [50]

[5].The KRAS statement has also been published by other internationalists, notably the Communist Workers Organisation [101] and the Anarchist Communist Group [102]. By contrast, the section of the IWA in Britain, Solidarity Federation, don’t appear to have published the KRAS statement.

--

"Anarchists" who forget the principles. Statement by KRAS-IWA June 8, 2022

The section of the International Workers’ Association in the region of Russia calls for a boycott of provocateurs and informers who hide behind the name of “anarchists” and denounce the activists of our organization.

Our position against the war waged by the capitalist oligarchies for the repartition of the “post-Soviet space” is met with understanding and support from anarchist internationalists in Ukraine, Moldova and Lithuania, with whom we maintain contacts.

But from the very beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the so-called “anarchists”, who abandoned the traditional anarchist internationalist position of defeating all states and nations and who support one of the warring parties, launched a campaign of slander against our organization.

For example, former anarchists Anatoly Dubovik and Oleksandr Kolchenko living in Ukraine have published the names and addresses of our activists on the open Internet. The first of them wrote the corresponding text, and the second gave him his Facebook account for publication and approved it. The pretext was that our organization takes a consistent internationalist position and condemns both the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukrainian nationalism and the expansionist policy of the NATO bloc.

Messrs. Dubovik and Kolchenko tried shamelessly and impudently to slander our IWA section, without any reason trying to attribute to us a position in defence of the Kremlin. Besides, they admit that we are calling for both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers to refuse to fight.

The latter means that these fake anarchists, by publishing the addresses of anti-war activists located in Russia, are directly inciting Russian secret services and nationalist thugs against them, as opponents of the war, in order to deal with them with their hands! In the conditions of ongoing harassment, dismissals, threats and physical reprisals against anti-military-minded people in Russia, such actions are tantamount to a real denunciation with a direct indication of whom the repressive forces should turn their attention to.

Once again, the nationalists on both sides of the front line, following the logic of “who is not with us is against us”, are ready to jointly destroy their main opponents, internationalists who refuse to make a choice between warring state and bourgeois cliques between plague and cholera.

Anarchists all over the world should be aware of the shameful deeds of provocateurs-informers and once and for all refuse to have anything to do with them, forever throwing them out of the anarchist environment and sending them to their patrons and masters from the secret services and the secret police!

The statement was approved at a referendum of the members of the KRAS-IWA

Rubric: 

Solidarity with internationalists in Russia

Some impressions of the ICC meetings of the 5th and 6th of March 2022

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The discussion at both meetings followed very similar lines and was equally positive, with several dozen comrades taking part over the two days. There was a clear unanimity from all on the defence of internationalism against all sides involved in the imperialist war in Ukraine and the denunciation of pacifist, “anti-war” demonstrations which historically and today are just another element denying and obscuring the integral relationship of capitalism to war. Comrades were equally clear that there was no “lesser evil” in this war. A number of the comrades of the Communist Workers Organisation took part in the meetings and were fully involved in the positive nature of the discussion and the defence of proletarian positions along with members, sympathisers and contacts of the ICC. Comrades’ positions were clear and succinct, reflecting their understanding of the seriousness of the situation.

1. All insisted on the gravity of the situation and the dangers that it poses for the working class. The population of Ukraine is today subject to the horrors of war: bombardments from rockets, tanks and artillery, displaced from their homes and mobilised and dragooned by their leaders into a suicidal “defence of our nation”; not because of a “mad man” but as a result of the ineluctable dynamics of disintegrating capitalism. While Russia trumpets its crude propaganda, the West spreads its equally blistering but more sophisticated kind, which also aims to induce a general terror, fear, guilt and impotence among populations with the working class aimed at in particular. The waves of refugees, fired upon by Russian forces and cynically manipulated by the west, are all part of this particular descent into capitalist barbarism where all workers are on the “front line”. In keeping with the development of decomposition, the situation is somewhat unpredictable (more on this below) but what is clear is that the war in and around Ukraine will drag on in one form or another, that it will have global consequences and marks a significant step in the further military chaos posed by a capitalism that no longer serves humanity but rather threatens its very existence.

The question of imperialist blocs was a feature of both discussions, with the ICC giving its position on their necessity for world war along with a decisive defeat of the proletariat. Initially the position of the CWO seemed to be that the war in Ukraine was a route to World War Three, but without ignoring the dangers and the evident barbarism and potential long-term nature of this war, the ICC defended its position that imperialist blocs were necessary for world war and these blocs did not exist today; rather the prevailing tendency that does exist – each for themselves in the relations between states - tends to continue to undermine them being set up. On the level of imperialism, the last three decades have seen the entrenchment and strengthening of these centrifugal tendencies as each nation tries to “look after number one”. Countries of the west may now be “united” in supporting Ukraine but all have made it clear that they won’t intervene as a bloc; in fact, there is no bloc unity necessary for world war. Germany and France have clear differences with the US and a day after NATO’s first resounding declarations, Britain fell out with the US over its continued access to Russian oil. In addition, many of the USA’s “faithful allies” in the Middle East are ambiguous: Saudi Arabia and the UAE initially expressed their neutrality at an OPEC Plus meeting, with 7 other members from Africa and Asia abstaining. After a few days the former two countries came into line and in the meantime Israel, Turkey and Kuwait mentioned Russia by name in a carefully calibrated statement emphasising peace and diplomacy; further revealing the underlying tensions, the OPEC+ meeting in early March (of which Russia is a member) took just minutes – with no mention of Ukraine - to say that no extra oil would be produced outside of the 2020 schedule, effectively turning down Biden’s plea to release more oil. On the Chinese side, the same centrifugal tendencies affect the possibilities of a Sino-Russian bloc and this has been demonstrated in various policies and instances where the two countries have shown very different imperialist interests. One comrade put forward the view that the ICC’s position on blocs and related issues was in danger of being schematic and inadequate for understanding the present situation, though this wasn’t entirely clear. But the ICC analysis has stood the test these last decades and has been an invaluable tool in understanding the whole period since the collapse of Russia and the concomitant dislocation of the Western Bloc in 1989; and from the same analysis the continuation of centrifugal tendencies will not mean any attenuation of military chaos and barbarism but, on the contrary, their exacerbation. One CWO comrade mooted the point that blocs weren’t necessary for world war to be unleashed, giving the example of the situation before the first two world wars when the contending alliances were formed very late, but this wasn’t really followed up; what is true is that imperialism continues even without blocs[1], that the absence of imperialist blocs will in no way reduce the tendency to brutal and generalising imperialist warfare over the longer term. The present war in Ukraine is a prime example of imperialism in decomposition; an aberration in further decay.

2. Throughout both meetings, concerns were expressed about the effect of the war on the working class: could it stop the war? Has it been weakened prior to the war? Could it take to the streets? Both meetings generally concluded that, despite some combativity in many sectors of the proletariat, the working class was already in a weakened condition due to the Covid pandemic (which is far from over), while already beset and disoriented by the furies of decomposition over three decades. The fundamental point about the working class, in this situation and others, defended by the ICC, is that its present condition is the result of the stalemate between the two classes, with neither able to inflict a decisive defeat on the other; it’s in this situation that capitalism rots on its feet. As comrades made clear, the working class as a whole is not being mobilised for war, and though it doesn’t possess the strength to stop the war in Ukraine it has been a major factor in braking capitalism’s tendency towards world war; and it looks unlikely that the proletariat of the west can be mobilised to fight a war (“boots on the ground”) against Russia. But in and around Ukraine things are grim for the working class along with the population as a whole. The working class in this region, which has a proud history of class struggle in the past, has been delivered a blow not least from its mobilisation for and subordination to Ukrainian nationalism, bolstered by the propaganda forces of the West in overdrive. There’s the differences between workers in the East and the West, with the centrality of the latter recalled by one comrade from a recent discussion on the “Theory of the Weakest Link”. The war has also weakened the working class in Russia, although its present quiescence – no doubt encouraged by strategic “bonuses”[2] from the Stalinist state - could change as the costs of the war hit home. In this situation of the generally accepted weakness of the working class, it is all the more necessary for revolutionaries to take a clear, united position on the war on which those present agreed. One comrade observed that we were very much fighting against the stream and the weight of the meetings agreed that we couldn’t and shouldn’t “wait” for the working class.

Comrades pointed out the way the unions were supporting Ukraine, mobilising in different countries and how these were putting themselves forward as defenders of the working class while taking up their role as defenders of democracy and the national interest. One comrade made the very important point about the link between the proletariat fighting the economic attacks of the bourgeoisie and confronting the wider question of imperialist war.

3. Both meetings showed once again that discussion is the life-blood of revolutionary activity, discussion that doesn’t go round in circles or fixate on secondary positions but takes place in order to adopt the clearest position that unites the Communist Left. We not only need to repeat the slogans of the workers’ movement in relation to war – as one comrade of the CWO put it – but even more so the practice of the clearest elements of the workers’ movement which was to come together, put secondary (but real) differences to one side and put a common position forward that is in the interests of the proletariat. This follows the tradition of Zimmerwald[3] (the “necessity to take the first step “, as Lenin put it), Basle and the tenacity and clarity on the relationship of capitalism to war from the Stuttgart Resolution of 1907[4], as well as the Third International and its clarity about the disintegration of capitalism. When the Left of the workers’ movement issued its statement of internationalism at Zimmerwald in 1915, the working class was tearing itself apart on the battlefields of Europe – it wasn’t a question of “waiting for the working class”.

While comrades were necessarily cautious, in part absorbing the gravity of the situation as it unfolded, the discussion was marked on both days by a concern to understand and reaffirm the basics, succinctness, care in interventions and a complete absence of waffle – in part due to the discipline of the Presidium and in part the self-discipline of all comrades present. Along with all comrades, the CWO ensured that the discussion overall was positive, with an agreement expressed on all the fundamentals important to the proletariat in this dramatic situation. It was somewhat jarring therefore when, in both meetings well into the development of the discussion, the CWO made one very short and one longer intervention saying that there was “no basis” for a common position; and though one comrade of the group agreed on a common statement, he said it should be ratified by the Internationalist Communist Tendency’s central organ[5]. Given that the majority of the comrades of the CWO, and their sincerity can’t be doubted, had helped clarify and push the discussion forward over a combined number of hours, this “no basis” for a common position (with little or no explanation) was a striking contradiction.

At the time of the meetings, the CWO had not rejected the appeal for a common position with the ICC and other groups of the Communist Left. This was the case up to and including their own zoom meeting recently, but in a recent article[6] following their meeting, the CWO appear to be avoiding the issue by putting forward a new version of the No War But The Class War group, already criticised by the ICC for its shaky foundations with ambiguous anarchist positions. These opportunist manoeuvres have already been criticised by the ICC for their failure to draw the lessons based on previous experiences and their attempts to build an alliance with anarchists whose defence of internationalism is diluted by deep ambiguities or concessions to leftist positions. The article also talks disparagingly about “paper declarations” (“essential though they are” – expressing another striking contradiction) and the need to break out of the “limited confines” of the Communist Left. The attempt in the meetings from the CWO to broaden the discussion onto what constitutes the Communist Left was a diversion from the need to produce a fundamental defence of the proletariat from the most conscious elements of the Communist Left. The overwhelming weight of both meetings supported a clear statement on the war from these elements and the hope is that this is not off the agenda; and if it is that there is a clear explanation from the CWO as to why this is the case.[7]

4. Throughout both meetings, particularly the second, the question of the unpredictability of capitalism kept cropping up. Quite correctly, because it is an element of the situation and the ICC’s analysis of decomposition factors in this phenomenon as consequential to it. But “unpredictability” can sometimes be fog-inducing, leading to ideas that “anything is possible”, which is not the case for marxism. If capitalism has become some degrees more unpredictable with its decomposition, it has always been a factor of its decadence, with the blind forces of capitalism often taking both the clearest revolutionary elements and parts of the bourgeoisie by surprise. The task of revolutionaries is not to predict precise events – that has a deterministic quality to it – but to lay out their understanding of the fundamentals of the general situation, the stakes and the line of march; and this has to be addressed to the working class as widely and clearly as possible.

I think in this respect the ICC and its sympathisers were late in understanding the dangerous developments on the Ukrainian border which have been deteriorating for some time. The noise around COP 26 covered increasing NATO aggression in Ukraine, the rumble of Russian tanks and artillery heading west and the increased bombings over the Russian-controlled enclaves with both sides killing civilians. We should have been on this quicker, not least because the aim is not to “predict” it, but to get a better understanding of a significant development of imperialism on the doorstep of Western Europe and what that means for the class struggle.

In conclusion I think that the meetings were very dynamic, and the contributions of all the elements present emphasised and supported the need to relegate secondary differences for the essentials. The comrades of the CWO fully contributed to the fruitful unfolding of the discussion which shouldn’t be surprising given its heritage and understanding of the situation. On the positive side internationalism was expressed with no ifs, buts or maybes. All comrades helped to push the discussion along (and clarify along the way), a discussion which was generally unambiguous and very much to the point. On reflection though and outside of the “heat” of the actual discussion – which was also underlined by the contradictions of its position - the decision of the CWO not to take part in an address by the Communist Left to the working class on the question of the war in Ukraine can only detract from this work and represents a failure of revolutionaries to face up to their tasks and responsibilities on the fundamentals of imperialist war.

Boxer, 5.4.22

 

[1] See point 5 of “Militarism and Decomposition”, International Review no. 64

[2] Wage bonuses in times of “trouble” are an old trick of the Stalinist regimes used to isolate and divide workers; President Lukashenko used them last year in order to keep the workers away from protests against the Belorussian regime. But there have already been strikes in Russia over unpaid wages and attacks here are going to become more widespread, making such manoeuvres nigh on impossible to implement.

[7] The ICC has the received the CWO’s letter of refusal and will respond in due course.

Rubric: 

Readers' contributions

The ruling class demands sacrifices on the altar of war

  • 668 reads

If you try to flee with your family from the war zones in Ukraine, along with hundreds of thousands of others, you will be forcefully divided from your wife, your children and your elderly parents if you are a male between 18 and 60: you are now conscripted to fight the advancing Russian army. If you stay in the cities, you will be subjected to shelling and missiles, allegedly aimed at military targets, but always causing that “collateral damage” which we first heard about in the West’s glorious Gulf War of 1991 – residential blocs, schools and hospitals are destroyed and hundreds of civilians are killed. If you are a Russian soldier, you may have been told that the people of Ukraine would welcome you as a liberator, but you will pay in blood for believing that lie. This is the reality of imperialist war today, and the longer it continues, the bigger will be the toll in death and destruction. The Russian armed forces have shown that they are capable of razing whole cities to the ground, as they did in Chechnya and Syria. The western arms pouring into the Ukraine will magnify the devastation.

An age of darkness

In one of its recent articles on the war in Ukraine, the right wing British newspaper The Daily Telegraph ran the headline The world is sliding into a new Dark Age of poverty, irrationality and war (telegraph.co.uk) [105]

In other words, the fact that we are living in a global system that is sinking in its own decomposition is becoming increasingly hard to conceal. Whether it’s the impact of the global Covid pandemic, the latest dire predictions about the ecological disaster facing the planet, the growing poverty resulting from the economic crisis, the very evident threat posed by the sharpening of inter-imperialist conflicts, or the rise of political and religious forces fuelled by once-marginal apocalyptic legends and conspiracy theories, the Telegraph’s headline is no more or less than a description of reality – even if their opinion writers are hardly looking for the roots of all this in the contradictions of capitalism.

Ever since the collapse of the eastern bloc and the USSR in 1989-91, we have been arguing that a world social system that has already been obsolete since the beginning of the 20th century was entering into a new and final phase in its decline. Against the promise that the end of the “Cold War” would bring about a new world order of peace and prosperity, we insisted that this new phase would be marked by increasing disorder and escalating militarism. The wars in the Balkans in the early 90s, the Gulf war of 1991, the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, the pulverisation of Syria, innumerable wars on the African continent, the rise of China as a world power and the revival of Russian imperialism have all confirmed this prognosis. The Russian invasion of Ukraine marks a new step in this process, in which the end of the old bloc system has given rise to a frenzied struggle of each against all where formerly subordinate or weakened powers are claiming a new position for themselves in the imperialist pecking order.

The gravity of this new war in Europe

The significance of this new round of open warfare in the European continent cannot be downplayed. The Balkans war already marked the tendency for imperialist chaos to return from the more peripheral regions towards the heartlands of the system, but that was a war “inside” a disintegrating state in which the level of confrontation between major imperialist powers was much less direct. Today we are witnessing a European war between states, and a much more open confrontation between Russia and its western rivals. If the pandemic marked an acceleration of capitalist decomposition at several levels (social, health, ecological, etc), the war in Ukraine is a stark reminder that war has become the way of life of capitalism in its epoch of decadence, and that military tensions and conflicts are spreading and intensifying on a world-wide scale.

The rapidity of Russian’s advance into Ukraine took many well-informed experts by surprise, and we ourselves were unsure that it would come about so quickly and so massively[1]. We don’t think that this was because of any flaws in our basic framework of analysis. On the contrary, it flowed from a hesitation in fully applying this framework, which was already elaborated in the early 90s in certain key texts[2] where we argued that this new phase of decadence would be marked by increasingly chaotic, brutal, and irrational military conflicts. Irrational, that is, even from the point of view of capitalism itself[3]: whereas in its ascendant phase, wars, above all those which paved the way for colonial expansion, brought clear economic benefits for the victors, in the period of decadence war has assumed an increasingly destructive dynamic and the development of a more or less permanent war economy has been a huge drain on the productivity and profits of capital. Even up to the Second World War, however, there were still “winners” at the end of the conflict, in particular the USA and USSR. But in the current phase, wars launched by even the world’s “top” nations have proved to be fiascos at both the military and economic levels. The humiliating withdrawal of the US from Iraq and Afghanistan is clear evidence of this.

 In our previous article we pointed out that an invasion or occupation of Ukraine was likely to plunge Russia into a new version of the quagmire it encountered in Afghanistan in the 1980s – and which was a powerful factor in the downfall of the USSR itself. There are already signs that this is the prospect facing the invasion of Ukraine, which has met considerable armed resistance, is unpopular with large segments of Russian society including parts of the ruling class itself, and has provoked a series of retaliatory sanctions from Russia’s main rivals which will certainly deepen the material poverty facing the majority of Russia’s population. At the same time, the western powers are stoking up support for the Ukrainian armed forces, both ideologically and through the supply of weapons and military advice. But despite these predictable consequences, the pressures on Russian imperialism prior to the invasion were daily reducing the possibility that the mobilisation of its forces around Ukraine would stop at a mere show of force. In particular, the refusal of NATO to rule out its eventual expansion into Ukraine could not be tolerated by Putin’s regime, and its invasion has the clear aim of destroying much of Ukraine’s military infrastructure and installing a pro-Russian government. The irrationality of the whole project, linked to an almost messianic vision of restoring the old Russian empire, the strong possibility that it will sooner or later lead to a new fiasco, was never going to deter Putin and those around him from taking the gamble. 

Are we heading towards the formation of new imperialist blocs?

On the face of it, Russia is now faced with a “United Front” of the western democracies and a newly vigorous NATO, in which the US is clearly playing a leading role. The US stands to be the main beneficiary if Russia gets bogged down in an unwinnable war in Ukraine, and from the increased cohesion of NATO faced with the common threat of Russian expansionism. This cohesion, however, is fragile: right up to the invasion, both France and Germany were trying to play their own game, emphasising the need for a diplomatic solution and pursuing separate talks with Putin. The opening of hostilities has forced them both to retreat, agreeing on the implementation of sanctions, even when they will hurt their economies much more directly than the USA’s (the example of Germany putting a stop on the Russian energy supplies which it badly needs). But there are also moves being made towards the EU developing its own armed forces, and Germany’s decision to greatly increase its arms budget must also be viewed from this angle.  It’s also necessary to recall that the US bourgeoisie itself faces major divisions over its attitude towards Russian power: Biden and the Democrats tend to maintain the traditionally hostile approach towards Russia, but a large part of the Republican party has a very different attitude. Trump in particular could not hide his admiration for Putin’s “genius” when the invasion started…

If we are a long way away from a new US bloc being formed, the Russian adventure has also not marked a step towards the constitution of a Russian-Chinese bloc. Despite recently engaging in joint military exercises, and despite previous expressions of Chinese support for Russia over issues like Syria, on this occasion China has taken its distance from Russia, abstaining on the vote censuring Russia at the UN Security Council and presenting itself as an “honest broker” calling for a cessation of hostilities. And we know that despite sharing common interests in opposition to the US, Russia and China have their own divergencies, notably on the question of China’s “New Silk Road” project. Behind these differences lies Russia’s wariness of subordinating itself to China’s own expansionist ambitions. 

Other factors of instability are also playing out in this situation, notably the role played by Turkey, which has on some level been courting Russia in its efforts to upgrade its global status, but which at the same time has come into conflict with Russia over the wars between Armenia and Azerbaijan and in Libya. Turkey has now threatened to block Russian warships accessing the Black Sea via the Dardanelles Straits, but here again this action will be calculated entirely on the basis of Turkish national interests.

But, as we wrote in our Resolution on the International Situation from the 24th ICC Congress, the fact that international imperialist relations are still marked by centrifugal tendencies “does not mean that we are living in an era of greater safety than in the period of the Cold War, haunted as it was by the threat of a nuclear Armageddon. On the contrary, if the phase of decomposition is marked by a growing loss of control by the bourgeoisie, this also applies to the vast means of destruction – nuclear, conventional, biological and chemical – that has been accumulated by the ruling class, and is now more widely distributed across a far greater number of nation states than in the previous period.  While we are not seeing a controlled march towards war led by disciplined military blocs, we cannot rule out the danger of unilateral military outbreaks or even grotesque accidents that would mark a further acceleration of the slide towards barbarism”[4].

Faced with the deafening international campaign to isolate Russia and the practical measures aimed at blocking its strategy in Ukraine, Putin has put his nuclear defences on high alert. This may only be a thinly-veiled threat at the moment, but the exploited of the world cannot afford to trust in the ultimate reasonableness of any part of the ruling class.

The ideological attack on the working class

To mobilise the population, and above all the working class, for war, the ruling class must launch an ideological attack alongside its bombs and artillery shells. In Russia, it seems that Putin has relied mainly on crude lies about the “Nazis and drug addicts” running Ukraine, and has not invested heavily in building up a national consensus around the war. This could prove to be a miscalculation, because there are rumblings of dissent within his own ruling circles, among intellectuals, and among wider layers of society. There have been a number of street demonstrations and around 6,000 people have been arrested for protesting against the war. There are also reports of demoralisation among a part of the troops sent to Ukraine. But so far there is little sign of a movement against the war based on the working class in Russia, which has been cut off from its revolutionary traditions by decades of Stalinism. In Ukraine itself, the situation facing the working class is even darker: faced with the horror of Russian invasion, the ruling class has to a large extent succeeded in mobilising the population for the defence of the “homeland”, with hundreds of thousands volunteering to resist the invaders with any weapon they can get their hands on. We should not forget that hundreds of thousands have also chosen the flee from the battle zones, but the call to fight for the bourgeois ideals of democracy and nation has certainly been heeded by sections of the proletariat who have thus dissolved themselves into the Ukrainian “people” where the reality of class division is forgotten. The majority of Ukrainian anarchists seem to be providing the extreme left wing of this popular front[5].

The capacity of the Russian and Ukrainian ruling classes to drag “their” workers to war shows that the international working class is not homogeneous. The situation is different in the main western countries, where for many decades now the bourgeoisie has been confronted with the unwillingness of the working class – despite all its difficulties and set-backs - to sacrifice itself at the altar of imperialist war. Faced with Russia’s increasingly belligerent stance, the ruling class in the West has carefully avoided putting “boots on the ground” and meeting the Kremlin’s adventure with direct military force. But this does not mean that our rulers are passively accepting the situation. On the contrary, we are witnessing the most coordinated ideological pro-war campaign seen for decades, the campaign for “solidarity with Ukraine against Russian aggression”. The press, from right to left, publicises and supports the pro-Ukraine demonstrations, lionising the “Ukrainian resistance” as the standard bearer of the West’s democratic ideals, now under threat from the madman in the Kremlin. And they are not hiding the fact that there will have to be sacrifices – not only because the sanctions against Russian energy supplies will add to the inflationary pressures which are already making it difficult for people to heat their homes, but also because, we are told, that if we want to defend “democracy”, we need to beef up our “defence” spending. As the liberal Observer’s Chief Political Commentator Andrew Rawnsley put it this week:

“Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disarmament that followed, the UK and its neighbours have mainly spent the ‘peace dividend’ on giving ageing populations better healthcare and pensions than they would otherwise have enjoyed. A reluctance to spend more on defence has continued even as China and Russia have become increasingly belligerent. Only a third of Nato’s 30 members are currently meeting the commitment to spend 2% of GDP on their armed forces. Germany, Italy and Spain fall very short of the target. 

Liberal democracies urgently need to rediscover the resolve to defend their values against tyranny that they displayed during the cold war. The autocrats in Moscow and Beijing believe that the west is divided, decadent and in decline. They have to be proved wrong. Otherwise, all the rhetoric about freedom is merely noise before defeat[6]”. It could hardly be more explicit: as Hitler put it, you can have guns, or you can have butter, but you can’t have both.

Just as the working class in a number of countries was showing signs of a new willingness to defend its living and working conditions[7], this massive ideological offensive by the ruling class, this call for sacrifice in the defence of democracy, will be a heavy blow against the potential for the development of class consciousness.  But growing evidence that capitalism lives by war can, in the long term, also be a factor in the emergence of an awareness that this whole system, east and west, is indeed “decadent and in decline”, that capitalist social relations must be uprooted from the Earth.

Faced with the current ideological assault, which aims to derail real indignation about the horror we are witnessing in Ukraine into support for imperialist war, the task of the internationalist minorities of the working class will not be an easy one. It begins with responding to all the lies of the ruling class and insisting that, far from sacrificing themselves for the defence of capitalism and its values, the working class must fight tooth and nail in defence of its own working and living conditions. At the same time, it means pointing out that it is through the development of these defensive struggles, and by reflecting as widely as possible on the experience of the proletarian combat, that the working class can renew its links with the revolutionary struggles of the past – above all the struggles of 1917-18 which forced the bourgeoisie to end the First World War. This is the only way to fight against imperialist wars and to prepare the way to ridding humanity of the source of war: the world capitalist order!

Amos

 

[3] This fundamental irrationality of a social system which has no future is of course accompanied by a growing irrationality at the level of ideology and psychology. The current hysteria about Putin’s mental state is based on a half-truth, because Putin is only one example of the kind of leader that has been secreted by the decomposition of capitalism and the growth of populism. Have the media already forgotten the case of Donald Trump?

Rubric: 

Imperialist conflict in Ukraine
Source URL:https://en.internationalism.org/content/17168/may-2022

Links
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