Ukraine war, Opportunism
and the Working Class
: Disruption of the Imperialist order and the Reorganization of the International Proletarian Leadership
<Contents>
Background of the War/ Military objectives of Russia/ Russia's Desire to End the War/ What US Imperialism Wanted/ Root of the Conflict/ Imperialist Motives of Marching Toward East/ Promise and the Reality of Imperialism/ Thirty Years of NATO Expansion Toward East/ 2004 Orange Revolution/ Imperialist Servants/ Yanukovych Re-elected/ Orange Revolution MK 2: “Euromaidan”/ Nature of Euromaidan Government/ Racist Policies of the Kiev regime/ Odessa Massacre/ Struggle for Independence in Donbass/ Azov Battalion/ Minsk Agreements/ Struggle of the Communist Party of Ukraine/ Putin's Anti-Communism/ What Putin Government Wanted/ Provocations of the U.S./ Putin’s Russian Government: Bonapartist-Nationalist Regime in Neo-Colony/ Rise of Putin/ Yeltsin, The Predecessor/ Is Russia Imperialist?/ Ukraine and the Left/ 1) Defining Russia as an Invader and supporting Ukraine and NATO’s victory/ 2) Defining Russia as imperialism and claiming defeat on both sides/ 3) It may not be imperialism, but Russia is also reactionary, so should be neutral/ 4) “Imperialism vs. Colony” due to the eastward movement of American-centered Western imperialism, therefore the victory of Donbas and Russia/ The Phase of “General Advantage of the World's Working Class, the General Disadvantage of Imperialism”/ Rift in the Unipolar System/ Ukrainian War and Class Relationship of Force/ Our Missions
This time last year, on February 24, 2022, Russia intervened in a civil war that broke out since an imperialist regime change coup d'état in 2014. As a result, the conflict expanded into an international war.
We issued a statement on February 26, two days after the escalation. Since then we explained the nature of itand correct position on the conflict in Ukraine several times. The development of events over the past year has repeatedly proved our position to be right.
「We Support the National Self-Determination of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia!」, October 1st, 2022
「MARXIST SPEAK OUT: 200 DAYS OF WAR」, September 8th, 2022
「OPEN LETTER FOR MAYDAY on Ukraine War」, April 18th, 2022
「Russian military action is a just retribution against provocations of NATO puppet regime」, February 26th, 2022
「Thoughts on Ukraine」, February 26th, 2014
Now, more than a year passed after the civil war escalated into an international war, we would like to explain our positions in more detail.
Russian entry into the direct war on February 24, 2022 was a response to the request of Russian speakers living in the southeastern part of Ukraine located on the border of Russia and the need to prevent entire Ukraine from becoming a forward base for imperialists targeting Russia.
29.6%, about a third of the Ukrainians, recognize Russian as their first language. They mainly live in the southeastern part of the country. According to a survey in 2004, 72% of Dnepr-Petrovsk province, 93% of Donetsk province, 89% of Lugansk province, 81% of Zaporizhia province, 85% of Odessa province, 74% of Kharkov province, and 66% of Nikolaev province were Russian speakers.
Among them, Donetsk and Lugansk province in the Donbass region declared independence shortly after the pro-imperialist fascist regime was established in Kiev. After the Russian military intervention in February 2022 drove out the Fascist army in Khersson and Zaporizhia, they also joined the ranks. During a five-day referendum in Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia, the four provinces respectively voted 99%, 98%, 87%, 93% yes for “secession from Ukraine and annexation toward Russia.”
Initially, Russia would have expected the same development as the 2008 Georgia War. In other words, securing Russia's national security by preventing the establishment of a pro-imperialist state that is extremely hostile to its own country at the border and securing a pro-Russia or neutral buffer zone.
Beyond that, however, subjugating entire Ukraine by force is impossible and rather suicidal. If so, it would not have been a just war defending itself from imperialist aggression, but an reactionary invasion suppressing the right to self-determination of Ukrainians in the western region by force. This would have given the imperialist gangster NATO a cause for full-scale intervention and laid huge burdens for Russians.
We made this point in a statement announced two days after Russian intervention as follows.
“In this regard, if the Russian army tries to continue its military occupation to establish a pro-Russian regime, it would be a dangerous gamble and would not be beneficial to the working class. It would be an infringement of the Ukrainian right to self-determination. It is likely to stimulate the right-wing nationalist sentiment among the working people in western Ukraine, thus intensifying national hostility between two countries. Furthermore, the main culprit, imperialist strategy of expanding NATO toward east, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, will be concealed.” -「Russian military action is a just retribution against provocations of NATO puppet regime」, February 26th, 2022
However, Russia does not have the power to realize it, nor does it have the will to do so. Due to low productivity, it lacks ability to extract super-profit from abroad, so, as a result, it has no imperial motivation.
As such, Russian military actions are very limited because subduing entire Ukraine was not Russia’s goal for intervention. For this reason, western Ukraine, including the capital Kiev, was quite free from the fire of war. Zelenskyy and Biden strut the streets of Kiev at ease because they know Russia has no intention of attacking western Ukraine.
Russia's Desire to End the War
The war, which has been dragging on for a year, is a huge burden for Russia. Western media claim that the death toll of Russian troops has exceeded 100,000, and report that the fiscal deficit has soared to the largest in 25 years(The Chosun Ilbo, February 9, 2023). The specific figures must have been exaggerated and need to be verified, but it is clear that Russia is experiencing serious difficulties due to the war.
Having secured the southeastern part of the Russian border, Russia has been proposing a peace treaty since shortly after the war. However, the negotiating table has not been held since April of last year due to the rejection of Zelenskyy, The field agent of NATO.
On February 20, right before the year one, US President Joe Biden visited Kiev and promised additional aid worth of $500 million, including tanks, missiles and armored vehicles, saying, “The Americans stand with you” for “as long as it takes.”
It is our judgment that Zelenskyy has never been a commander-in-chief of Ukrainian armed forces but merely a clown which has usage for public relations. A real owner of Ukraine behind the scene is NATO, which US imperialist financial capital centered at the core. Zelenskyy, stationed at safe rear, is working hard on filming contents deceiving people around the world and begging supports from western backers.
War makes enormous profits to imperialist financial capital. And the ultimate prey or prize for imperialist financial capital is Russia. In other words, Swallowing vast natural resources of Russia by setting pro-imperialist regime. It tries to exhaust Russia as much as possible to poke its toenail into Russia's torso and bite off its neck at the decisive moment. The document of RAND corporation,「Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground」(April 2019) accounts for this intention in detail. We deeply analyzed and explained on this issue in our previous document「On the Belarusian Crisis」(January 2021)
The war itself escalated into an international war on 24 February 2022, but still it is an extension of the civil war caused by the 2014 Euromaidan coup. And the root of this conflict is marching of US and NATO toward east after the collapse of socialist bloc in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union during 1989 to 1991.
It was explained in our article 「On the Belarusian Crisis」(January 2021) as follows.
Modern History of Eastern Europe: The Counter-Revolution of Capitalism and the March to the East of NATO
In 1917 October Revolution abolished private ownership and established a workers’ state for the first time in Russia and its vicinity. As a result of World War II, imperialism, the core violence that supported capitalism, was overthrown in the Soviet victory zone and in some areas where the national liberation struggle won. The private ownership was abolished and the achievements of the October Revolution expanded. It had a weakness of low productivity and Stalinist bureaucracy, but workers’ state expanded to Eastern Europe, North Korea and China, and then Cuba and Vietnam.
However, as the left-wing opposition led by Trotsky analyzed and predicted, the contradictions, such as ‘the failure of spread of revolution to advanced capitalist countries, corruption and incompetence of Stalinist social parasite groups, and low productivity levels‛, did not eliminate capitalist regression factors in the region. Capitalist elements grew more and more, taking advantage of the weaknesses of a degenerated/deformed workers’ state. In 1989-1991, capitalist counter-revolutions broke out in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and one of the axes of the so-called “real socialism” fortress collapsed.
Power fell to capitalist regression, and the red flag was lowered. Private ownership and the flag of the bourgeois state were raised again. The capitalist ruling party, which took over the power of the state, soon proceeded to completely expand private ownership. The tank, which became a platform in August 1991 for Yeltsin, the leader of the capitalist counter-revolution, shelled the building of Supreme Soviet, who disagreed the disolution of state owenrship, in October 1993. The living standards of the people of Russia and Eastern Europe have fallen into abyss.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO, which is an imperialist axis supporting capitalism, such as the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, expanded its influence eastward and eastward.
Imperialist Motives of Marching Toward East
After the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, US & European imperialist forces initiated an action to grip over the market of Eastern Europe and Russia. Restoration of private ownership and capitalist state is not fully satisfying. Profits maximize when pro-imperialist regime that obeys the orders of imperialist financial capital without question is established.
“Of course, finance capital finds most “convenient,” and derives the greatest profit from, a form of subjection which involves the loss of the political independence of the subjected countries and peoples. In this respect, the semi-colonial countries provide a typical example of the “middle stage.” It is natural that the struggle for these semidependent countries should have become particularly bitter in the epoch of finance capital, when the rest of the world has already been divided up.”—V. I. Lenin,「Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism」
The pro-imperialist regime change named "Color Revolution" that has taken place in Eastern Europe over the past 30 years, is the result of this social dynamics.
Promise and the Reality of Imperialism
After the collapse of East Germany in 1989, the Soviet Union was anxious about the new security environment during process of German reunification. To eliminate the risk at the stage on the brink of success, the United States had to reassure the Soviet Union, which still has a presence in East Germany. On February 9, Secretary of State George Baker promised then-Soviet President Gorbachev, “not one inch eastward.”
The reactionary tsunami of capitalist restoration that swept over entire Eastern Europe in 1989 reached to Russia in 1991. Even Yeltsin, who took power through the capitalist counter-revolution, was worried about Russia’s security. He announced opposition to NATO membership of Eastern European countries. Then, in a meeting with Yeltsin on October 22, 1993, US Secretary of State Warren Christopher reassured the president that Eastern Europe will enter the Partnership for Peace which will include Russia, not NATO.
However, in 1999, Czech, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO, followed by Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 2004, and most of the Eastern bloc, including Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia joined.
Covering and deceit are the basics of predators. The sweet promises on the lips, even if they were sincere at the time, do not restrain the nature of predators. Preys fall a victim because they always get fantasized not realizing the truth.
Thirty Years of NATO Expansion Toward East
From 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed until now, for about 30 years, imperialist forces have been moving eastward, carrying out a pro-imperialist regime change through the so-called “color revolution.” The Yugoslav bulldozer in 2000, the Georgia Rose in 2003, the Ukrainian Orange in 2004, the Kyrgyzstan Tulip in 2005, and the Belarusian Jeans Revolution in 2006 are well-known examples. Through this process, over the past 30 years, NATO, led by the United States, has advanced “east, east” with Russia as its final goal.