The War in Ukraine: A Year On

February 24th marked one year since Russian troops crossed the border with Ukraine and began its overt military intervention in what was a de facto civil war. From 2014 and the Western intervention resulting in that year’s coup against President Yanukovych, Ukraine has been a divided country engaged in a bitter, violent struggle over its future alignment. Indeed, that struggle had been simmering since Ukraine left the Soviet Union, with roots going back even further. Ukrainian nationalism has almost always sought to link independence with the protection of one powerful sponsor or another.

Like other civil wars, this war is the continuation of simmering, expanding political, economic, and social issues-- politics by other, more violent, brutal, and dangerous means. Except for the Soviet period, there has never been a stable, viable, enduring Ukrainian state. Nor has there been a Western-style “democracy” with sufficient popular support and legitimacy.

But the war is something more than a civil war. It is also an imperialist war contested between great powers claiming to defend the interests of factions engaged in the civil war. As with other imperialist wars, the great powers are contesting over direct and indirect economic interests while seeking to maintain or establish spheres of interest.

Russia, for its part, as a relatively new, emergent capitalist power, has an unbalanced economy, relying heavily on the export of its abundant natural resources, principally gas and oil. As a result of Cold War aggression, Russia also has a highly developed military-weapons industry as a legacy of the Soviet Union. Its role in the imperialist conflict revolves around defending its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and the economic links established during the Soviet era, maintaining and expanding its share of the Western European energy market, and burnishing its position in supplying weaponry in the ever-expanding global armament frenzy. 

The US, on the other hand, as the self-styled leader and police of the capitalist world order, opposes Russia’s independent foreign policy and economic and political influence in Eastern Europe. Support for Syria, a country at odds with US and Israeli interests in the Middle East, undoubtedly brought Russia into even sharper conflict with the US. The dream of unchallenged US global hegemony was, no doubt, interrupted by Russia’s failure to pay obeisance. 

But the battle over natural gas markets-- seen as the transitional “clean” carbon-based energy source-- played an oversized role in motivating the conflict. With US potential natural gas production nearly limitless thanks to new technologies, the US urgently needed new markets. Most recently, investors were backing away from the industry because of low prices and shrinking profits.

As I wrote on February 2, 2022, more than three weeks before the Russian military invasion started:

…Biden’s administration harps on Trump-like sanctions aimed at the Russian economy and, not least of all, its energy sector.

If oil was a motivating factor in US foreign policy activism in the 1980s and 1990s, then natural gas is a decisive motivating factor today. Where the US was determined to secure oil resources in the past, energy independence and the fracking revolution motivate US policy makers to secure natural gas markets today.

In essence, the US is baiting the Russians into actions that will encourage the Europeans to reject their dependence upon cheap Russian natural gas. Instead, they want Europe to rely on expensive US liquified natural gas, a change that Europeans have, so far, resisted. War hysteria is meant to frighten the Europeans into rejecting the nearly completed Nord Stream pipeline and, instead, build costly liquified natural gas terminals to accept US gas. Thus, the underlying strategy is economic-- a not-so-subtle bullying of Europe into aligning with US economic interests.

The goal is to restart the botched, overinvested, badly managed fracking revolution that would now ride the tide of high energy prices.

The criminal destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines by the US and its allies only underscores the above analysis.

Today, the US is the world’s largest exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG). Also, oil purchases from the US by the UK, Netherlands, Italy, France, Spain, and Germany have increased by 344,000 barrels a day since last February, according to The Wall Street Journal. The WSJ article quotes Daniel Yergin, an oil energy historian and vice chairman of S&P Global: “America is back in the most predominant position it has been in world energy since the 1950s… U.S. energy now is becoming one of the foundations of European energy security.” Those who see US imperialism as in a stage of irreversible decline might find this statement sobering.

The stakes of inter-imperialist conflict were established well before the intervention of February 24. To anyone paying attention, the worsening conflict was about much more than Ukrainian self-determination, democracy, or sovereignty. The encroachment of NATO was motivated by far more than protecting Eastern Europe from Russian aggression. And the Russian interests were less idealistic than simply liberating Ukrainians from themselves or neo-Nazis.

In response to the many who found noble motives on one side or the other, I wrote on February 14, ten days before the operation:

Those who remain skeptical of the economic motives behind the US warmongering must explain why Biden placed natural gas politics ahead of any other matter before him and his German ally [Scholtz] in this first significant policy exchange. Biden’s glee-- not shared by his German counterpart-- reveals the importance the US government places on seizing the natural gas market from the Russians, their rival in the energy business.

The Ukraine crisis presents other economic advantages as well. In less than two weeks, the US has sent eight cargo planes to the Ukraine with military supplies, part of the $200 million Biden authorized in new military aid. The xenophobic, ultra-nationalist Baltic states and Poland have sent massive amounts of military equipment to Ukraine as well, much of which is sourced from US corporations and will be replaced by aid or purchases from the US.

Whether Ukraine joins NATO or not, Ukraine is being militarized and will continue to be a destination for US arms. On this front, the US military-industrial establishment will win, regardless of the crisis outcome.

Adversaries on both sides of the Cold War-like divide will be armed to the teeth and the possibility of war raised accordingly.

US “aid” to Ukraine since last February is rapidly approaching 100 billion dollars-- far more than US aid to any other country or any other country’s contribution to Ukraine’s war effort.

With the Russian military invading on several fronts on February 24 of last year, the civil war reached a qualitatively greater intensity, with NATO sharply increasing its participation. Weapons poured into Ukraine, guaranteeing a conflict of a dimension unseen in Europe since World War II. Predictably, the Western propaganda machine spoke with one voice, portraying Ukraine as a hapless victim of unprovoked Russian invasion. 

Sadly, the social democratic and liberal left in Europe and the US-- blinded by the missionary zeal of the twisted doctrine of “humanitarian interventionism” and intoxicated by a media smear of everything Russian-- quickly fell in line with NATO’s militarization of Ukraine, going so far as calling for a military victory over Russia and regime change in Moscow. 

Western ruling classes proved adept at winning the broad center-left to the bizarre notion that a moral defense of Ukraine constructed around the principle of self-determination could be applicable to a regime that itself violated the democratic principle of self-determination by staging a violent coup d’état eight years earlier. 

As in 1914 in the early stages of World War I, the liberals and social democrats betrayed any anti-war principles to the fever of war. No anti-war movement was forthcoming from this camp.

In the US, this left-center opportunism is firmly held in place by fealty to the Democratic Party, whose imperial adventures are only softly challenged by liberals or social democrats.

Others on the left-- whether from a nostalgic conflation of Russia with the Soviet Union or a failure to understand Russia’s role in the imperialist system-- portrayed the Russian government as a liberator or as a paragon of anti-imperialism. This naive view turned reality on its head and imagined a corralling of imperialism-- a step towards a multipolar utopia-- as an anticipated result of Russia’s defeat of NATO’s surrogates on the battlefield of Ukraine. 

How Russia prevailing or any other alternative military outcome could benefit the working classes of Ukraine, Russia, or the West is beyond credulity. Illusions of a Russian version of humanitarian intervention unfortunately infect some elements of the left. Meanwhile, the bodies are piling up, homes are destroyed, and families are forced to flee.

Too few of us on the left rejected the two misguided choices, recognizing the essence of the war as imperialist conflict.

As the war ground on, I wrote on May 9, 2022:

The great tragedy is that the broad left-- the historical foil to war and imperialism-- remains divided, confused, and inactive while a bloody, destructive war rages, threatening to expand and escalate. As the war continues with no resolution, the only winner is US imperialism.

Trade union militants in Italy and Greece took to the streets to oppose the war, along with Greek Communists. Thousands marched in Prague in September against rising energy and other costs as a result of the war in Ukraine. Yet no national action against the war occurred in the US, and little in the rest of Europe. 

The fact that the Zelensky regime outlawed political parties, stripped labor regulations, and criminalized the opposition found most of the liberal and social democratic left unmoved (The AFL-CIO-- a strong supporter of Zelensky-- was eventually forced to object on behalf of its favored anti-Communist unions). 

Efforts for a peaceful settlement were persistently undermined by the Western powers-- the US, UK, and their NATO partners. 

In the face of intransigent Western governments and a lame, disputatious left guilty of misguided partisanship, the cause of peace was left to others. The populist right has attempted to take on the role of peacekeeper, at least to the extent of questioning the unconditional support for the further escalation of the war. As the war stalemated, right-wing politicians in opposition found mismanagement of the war to be a fertile field for political advantages. For a vivid example of right-populist war skepticism, see Representative Matt Gaetz’s scathing rebuke of US Defense Department officials, concluding that US money spent on guaranteeing Ukrainian pensions would be better spent in the US on bolstering pension reserves here.

Democratic Party elected officials, on the other hand, have been unmoved, staying solidly behind Biden’s instigation and expansion of the war.

The notorious corruption of successive Ukrainian regimes, the mobilizing of more troops and the introduction of more lethal and longer-range weapons, and weariness over the dwindling prospect of early victories are spawning questions and doubts. As the conflict is prolonged, support in the opinion polls is now sagging. This is reflected in less cheerleading and more nuance in coverage by leading newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post. 

A recent feature article in The Wall Street Journal, Domestic Political Troubles Return for Ukraine’s Zelensky, recounts both the checkered trajectory of Zelensky’s career and his immersion in a sea of corruption. Recently, a large number of his colleagues were ousted or forced to resign for serious corruption.

The article cites opposition politicians who portray the leader as “authoritarian” over his total dominance of the Ukrainian media. In addition, The WSJ reminds us that Ukrainian trust in Zelensky was down to 28% before the war. In short, the lengthy article tarnishes the image of the celebrity figure formerly viewed by the media as whistle-clean and selfless, perhaps a telling sign of some cracks in ruling class consensus.

Also, the sunny prospects of Ukrainian victory with advanced Western technologies are beginning to turn a little gloomy; in late February Zelensky  fired a top general serving as the commander of the joint forces of Ukraine. Apparently, Russia has seized the military initiative in Eastern Ukraine to rhe chagrin of Ukraine's leaders.

Most countries are refusing to be bullied by US efforts to steer them into condemning or sanctioning Russia. Both Peoples’ China and Lula’s Brazil have proposed plans for all parties to cease fighting and negotiate.

These and other changes and initiatives offer hope that resistance to the war will grow. This year, two encouraging national actions in opposition to the war were planned to rally in Washington, DC. Unfortunately, the organizers of the events engaged in bitter Internet battles where some questions of substance were poisoned by egos, turf wars, and pettiness. Historically, rival peace organizations settle their differences and validate their approach in practice. We have seen factional and sectarian conflict in the peace movement before. At least, there is now motion to halt the war and negotiate, with another rally scheduled for March 18.

Recent actions in Europe are encouraging, as well. Thousands have marched in Berlin, London, and other cities.

Maybe we are seeing the first shoots of a soon-to-blossom movement to end the war and reject militarism.

As I wrote last September 7:

The war in Ukraine is the logical outcome of the unwinding of globalization, a process that began with the 2007-2009 world economic crisis… 

Competition intensified and rivalries became more virulent. Inevitably, economic competition leads to confrontation and confrontation leads to war.

The circumstances of war become less important and the deadly outcomes and possible escalations take center stage. Today, the likelihood of a long, bloody war and its potential expansion beyond borders demand action.

As this tragedy unfolds, the only answer-- the working-class answer-- is to pull out all stops to end it. We desperately need a militant movement to stop this war.

The need is even more urgent today.

Greg Godels

zzsblogml@gmail.com

Imperialism revisited

The war in Ukraine has surfaced many of the ideological weaknesses of the left, including the Marxist-friendly, pro-socialist left. With the decline of many Communist Parties and the fascination of so-called “Western Marxism” and the few remaining academic Marx scholars with rethinking, reimagining, or otherwise reinventing Marxism, it is no wonder that today’s Marxist “theory” often seems to lack a mooring in either precedent theory or actual practice. This weakness is apparent in the writing and thinking on imperialism of many friends and comrades, including in their views on the Ukrainian conflict.

In March, I argued that debates over whether Russia-- a belligerent in the war in Ukraine-- was an imperialist country were neither productive of any useful conclusions nor sanctioned by an understanding of V.I. Lenin’s account of imperialism as expressed in his influential pamphlet, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.

Rather than describing a club of wealthy states that met a strictest of membership criteria, Lenin sought to explain a stage of capitalism that emerged after the extensive, expansive, competitive growth of capitalism reached its zenith and begin to be replaced with intensive, concentrated growth typified by the monopolization or cartelization of industries.

The new stage, beginning in the 1870s, sprang from the logic of capitalism, most importantly the rise of monopoly, the domination of the economy by extremely large enterprises: “…the formation of international capitalist monopolies which share the world among themselves.”

Lenin enumerates other features of the new stage-- imperialism-- including the complete division of the world “among the greatest capitalist powers…” For Lenin, writing in 1916, and others like John Hobson, Rosa Luxemburg, and Rudolf Hilferding, the world was divided into the greatest capitalist powers [the colonizers], the semi-colonies, and the colonies.

No one in Lenin’s time seriously questioned that the late-nineteenth century saw a rapidly completing division of the world, especially Africa, with tensions growing enormously between the “great powers” over their territorial acquisitions. This was commonly dubbed the “new imperialism” to separate it from the earlier empires constructed in the inappropriately named “age of discovery,” a time when Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands conquered the new world.

In Hobson’s famous 1902 study, Imperialism, A Study, he documents 38 distinct regions in Asia, Africa, and even Europe that were “acquired” by a European Power between 1871 and 1901.

He also charts 13 Great Powers, 3 of which are non-European, and one-- Russia-- that is Euro-Asian, all of which held over half a billion people in colonial subjugation.

By 1916, Lenin additionally noted the rise of Japan into a great power, a country that defeated Russia in the interim and acquired Korea and other lands. 

Where Hobson counted China and Turkey as great powers with colonies, Lenin viewed them (and Persia) as semi-colonies because they were nominally “independent” but “subordinate” to the dictates of finance capital. It is well worth noting that this status-- specified by Lenin in 1916-- became the dominant form of imperialism in the post-colonial era. What we might call “neo-colonies,'' following Nkrumah, were called “semi-colonies” by Lenin. Imperialism today is determined by the dominance of economic and financial relations and more rarely by out-and-out subjugation and physical occupation.

It is even more noteworthy that the semi-colonial countries in 1916-- Turkey, China, and Persia-- themselves held colonies. That is, they participated in the imperialist system as both colonies (by means of their economic domination by greater powers) and as small-time colonizers. Lenin does not paint a simple, naive picture of solely state-victims and state-victimizers. Instead, the victimizer is capitalism in its final, imperialist stage. It is the system that generates the international monopolies that drive their home countries to expand and capture markets, secure the safety of capital export, and guarantee the availability of raw materials. Capitalism is the driving force behind the various states’ division of the world, according to Lenin.

Lenin’s contemporary critics debated on two fronts. First, they took issue with the theorem that imperialism was fundamentally based upon economic factors. Rather than economic self-interest, they suggested that imperialism sprang from national aggrandizement, innate human instincts, personalities, global insecurities, missionary zeal, etc.

Second, they disagreed that imperialism was linked to capitalism. And if it was linked, it was not intrinsically linked, as Lenin argued, and not a logical outcome of a specific stage of capitalism.

Joseph Schumpeter, later a prominent professor of economics at Harvard University, wrote an essay in 1919 that argued, contra Lenin, that capitalism, in fact, was actually antagonistic to imperialism-- capitalism as anti-imperialism! Paradoxically, this obscure paper was edited by socialist Paul Sweezy and republished in English in 1951 (Imperialism and Social Classes) in the high Cold War and the beginnings of rapid decolonization, no doubt as an answer to Leninism.

Bourgeois academic apologists for capitalism clearly saw, and see today, that the essence of Lenin’s theory of imperialism is that capitalism, in its monopoly stage, breeds imperialism. They grasp that the force of Lenin’s argument is directed at the economic system of capitalism and not at providing a criterion for states to gain membership in the imperialist club.

It is commonplace for liberals to attack the link between economic self-interest, capitalism, and imperialism by pointing out that individual empire-hungry nation-states participated in the imperialist system in spite of their economic shortcomings. For example, the once-prominent professor and economic advisor, Eugene Staley, writing in 1935, noted that Tsarist Russia, once a great predatory power by everyone’s estimate, “had no ‘surplus capital’ in any reasonable sense of that term; Russia had very little capital at all and borrowed heavily from abroad.” (War and the Private Investor. A Study in the Relation of International Politics and International Private Investment).

Were he alive, Lenin would not dispute this claim about Russia's economic backwardness, he would no doubt point out that it was irrelevant to his thesis. The point is that imperialism is the economic imperative forced upon all capitalist countries in the era of monopoly capitalism, whether it springs from weakness or strength. Whether a capitalist country is expanding or defending its economic interests, it must participate in the imperialist system. It matters little whether we wish to call one capitalist country imperialist, another imperialist, or all imperialists, it is the capitalist system that generates systemic imperialism. And it is that system that generates war in the age of monopoly capitalism. It is the system that is the target of Lenin’s pamphlet, Imperialism.

Yet, some comrades and friends try to enlist Lenin’s writings in support of Russian Exceptionalism. For the most part, they do not deny that Russia is a capitalist country. Nor do they deny that Russian capital has international objectives and global interests. Nor can they deny that in the short time since the demise of the Soviet Union, Russian capital has become remarkably concentrated.

Still, they believe that Russia’s relatively new and junior status in the capitalist pantheon excepts Russia from the imperialist architecture. They contend that Russia is not enough of a capitalist power to participate in imperialism. Both Stan Smith and Stewart McGill (Communist Review 104, Is Russia an Imperialist Power?) recently marshaled an impressive amount of evidence to show that Russia falls far short of other advanced capitalist countries in exhibiting the features that Lenin maintains are characteristic of the imperialist system. But that in no way shows that Russia stands outside of the imperialist system looking in.

Smith and McGill believe that relative economic backwardness disqualifies a state, even a capitalist state, from imperialism. But as the liberal, Eugene Staley, showed, Tsarist Russia-- though a paragon of great power imperialism by everyone’s estimation-- nonetheless, fails to measure up to those same features that Smith and McGill mistakenly believe define state-driven imperialism. A great power in the imperialist system need not be an economic great power to pursue imperialist ends. Moreover, ascribing this view to Lenin does a disservice to his views as expressed in Imperialism. Calling out “imperialist” countries by name was not Lenin’s project.

The tendency to see Russia as a non-participant in the imperialist game is somewhat understandable, but mistaken. Russia has, in recent years, commendably resisted US imperialism, sided with others resisting US imperialism, and offered aid to victims of US imperialism. But one would expect a rival great power to resist another great power and seek allies.

Neither Lenin’s analysis nor the events-of-the-day support a case for Russian exceptionalism. Andrew Murray, in a recent letter to the UK Morning Star (August 20), underscores the point succinctly:

[Lenin] wrote that “in its essence imperialism is monopoly capitalism.” It was not necessary for a state to be “advanced” to be under monopoly control. That was the case in the tsarist empire of Lenin’s time – definitely backward and replete with feudal hangovers, but also definitely imperialist.

 Capitalism in Russia had developed late and fast on a monopoly basis. To assert that “Russia is not and never was an imperialist state” to Lenin flies in the face of his writings.

 Is today’s Russia monopoly capitalist? Comrades seeking to deny that Russia is imperialist never offer a political economy of the country for fear of what they might find.

In fact, Russian capitalism is monopolist to a very high degree, with a huge percentage of key industries and banking in the hands of a very few oligarchic groups. Again, this despite the country’s relative backwardness. A later-arriving capitalist power, as it was in the 19th century, Russian monopoly is driven by the demands of competition, nationally and globally.

So Russia is a monopoly capitalist regime with a leader who seeks to emulate Peter the Great and who denies the principle of self-determination. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it might actually be a duck.

Whatever kind of a “duck” Russia may be, it has not escaped the dangerous capitalist game of great-power rivalry. That is the point that should not be lost.

Greg Godels
zzsblogml@gmail.com

No to the Imperialist War!

Amidst echoes of 1914 and World War I, the political left-- far less potent than a century ago-- is split between the contestants in a European war.

As in 1914, the rush to pick sides in the conflict in Ukraine clouds all judgment, conjuring the adolescent emotions engaged while witnessing a schoolyard fight. Some on the left portray Ukraine as an innocent victim of a notorious bully and the bully’s long history of belligerence.

Others, long cognizant of the nefarious role of the US and NATO in bringing perceived rivals, renegades, or defiers to their knees, see Russia as the hapless victim of betrayed promises and existential threats.

Those who rush to Ukraine’s defense without qualification display an ignorance of history and the transparent roles of all the players in the global imperialist chess game. They also succumb to the crudest propaganda campaign since the 2003 exaggerations and fabrications employed to sell the Iraq invasion. Their jump onto the Western imperialist bandwagon is, at best, naive beyond hope, at worst, complicit in the aggressive foreign policy of the US and NATO.

Invoking Ukraine’s right to self-determination would seem to have more credibility. But it is necessary to remember how Western imperialism has often twisted the doctrine to fit its own predatory goals. When Vietnam was moving towards independence, the US and its allies artificially created a Republic of Vietnam in the south, basing US support and long war on defending its right of self-determination against “Communist aggression.” The West used the same ruse with mineral-rich Katanga, Kosovo, and oil-rich Cabinda to name a few. Ukraine lost any pretense of self-determination after it underwent a Western-sponsored coup in 2014. Western imperialism is always anxious to defend the spurious right of self-determination of its clients and puppets.

On the other hand, those opposing the unqualified support of “heroic” Ukraine certainly have a case. The aggressive posture of the US and NATO towards Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union is real, though seldom explored by anyone in the monopoly-media commentariat. Surrounding Russia with NATO member states, bases, war-game simulations, and troop deployments is inexplicable, except by attributing hostile intent. Meddling in the civil and political life through unrequested NGOs and bombarding Russia’s citizens with critical, oppositional messages cannot be seen as friendly acts.

Nonetheless, these acts of aggression fall short of military action and do not justify military action by another party. Saber-rattling is qualitatively different from going to war. An invasion is not a justified response.

Also, the proffered notion that the Russian invasion was actually a defensive action to rescue the Russian-speaking citizens of Eastern Ukraine reeks of the same doublespeak that the US and NATO employ with their putrid doctrine of humanitarian interventionism. The shame of this excuse for imperialist aggression does not validate it for Russian use.

A strong case can be made that the Russian leadership was once again drawn into the ‘Brzezinsky trap.’ US signals before the invasion were remarkably ambiguous. While the US military and State Department were warning of a Russian build-up and imminent invasion, the usual, expected bellicose warnings were not heard from Washington. Typically, when a great power senses that a rival is threatening, it responds with exaggerated threats of its own, military maneuvers, troop build-ups, heightened alerts, etc. Instead, President Biden gave assurances that the US would not be drawn into a war.

Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Advisor, devised a scheme to draw the Soviet Union into a long, bloody, fruitless war in Afghanistan by encouraging and supporting Islamic zealots to destabilize a country on the USSR border.

Similarly, George Bush, the elder, allowed his ambassador to give mixed signals about a US response to Saddam Hussein when Hussein contemplated an invasion of Kuwait. Hussein took the bait, precipitating a US invasion of Iraq.

If it was a trap and the Russian leadership fell for it, then not only was the invasion not justifiable, but it was tragically misguided. The result, to date, has generated greater military, economic, and public pressure on the Russian Federation, a situation that Russian leaders said they wanted to forestall with their action.

Thus, defending Russia’s invasion, despite the context, is defending the indefensible.

Many want to portray Russia as “anti-imperialist,” given its commendable acts of opposition to US aggression in countries like Syria, Cuba, or Venezuela. But as I explained in an earlier article, that is not a helpful way of understanding Russia’s role in the imperialist system and certainly not consistent with V.I. Lenin’s theory of imperialism. Those who harbor this illusion-- whether from Cold War nostalgia or a misreading of Lenin’s writings-- are attempting to detach today’s Russia from its capitalist economic base and deny that its rulers act on behalf of its capitalist class.

It is possible to grant that Russia objectively acted against US imperialism in militarily aiding Syria while also asserting that the conflict in Ukraine is an imperialist war. That is, the battle raging in Ukraine is, in the final analysis, fought over the material interests of capitalist ruling classes, not the interests of the people of Ukraine or Russia.

The great tragedy is that the broad left-- the historical foil to war and imperialism-- remains divided, confused, and inactive while a bloody, destructive war rages, threatening to expand and escalate. As the war continues with no resolution, the only winner is US imperialism.

In sharp contrast, over 40 Communist Parties have signed a joint statement --No to the Imperialist War in Ukraine!-- affirming that the war in Ukraine is an imperialist war and that the people “have no interest in siding with one or another imperialist or alliance that serves the interests of the monopolies.” The statement recognizes that ending the conflict-- “the meat grinder of imperialist war” -- is the foremost task and goes further to “demand the closure of military bases, the return home of troops from missions abroad, to strengthen the struggle for the disengagement of the countries from imperialist plans and alliances such as NATO and the EU.”

One signatory-- the Greek Communist Party-- has led the way by protesting at the US and Russian embassies, organizing mass demonstrations against the war, and leading the effort to stop NATO weapons shipments. Italian labor organizations have also resisted NATO arms shipments.

To the magazine’s credit, the editor of Monthly Review, the influential US left publication demonstrates a similar understanding:

At present, we are once again seeing “an old-style struggle for power” in the form of a war in Ukraine, which has taken on a “ghostly character” because of the presence of thermonuclear weapons on both sides of what… is essentially a “proxy war” between two capitalist states: the United States (along with the whole of NATO) and Russia.

By bringing the threat of nuclear war into sharp focus, editor John Bellamy Foster shows the folly of those caught in the blame-game, those immobilized by the allure of war pornography spread by monopoly capital’s powerful propaganda machine, and underscores the urgency of stopping the war now.

To perhaps the surprise of some, Pope Francis has brought clarity to the war in Ukraine, in earthy, but direct language. Supposedly, he told the Russian Orthodox Patriarch that the Russian church leader should not be “Putin’s altar boy.” While this brought glee from those supporting “Glory to Ukraine” at all costs, he followed up with the charge that the cause of the war might be the “barking of NATO at the door of Russia,” an apt metaphor. The Pope's blunt analysis supports his commitment to ending the war above all other concerns. He has offered to visit all belligerents and negotiate, the sane way to end hostilities.

While Pope Francis’s position as peacemaker may seem unremarkable, it must be placed against the backdrop of the “just war” concept that has allowed Catholics and church leaders in the past to tailor the Church’s message to please right-wing regimes, war makers, and xenophobia, while appearing doctrinaire.

A recent commentary in The Wall Street Journal explores the Church’s historic relationship to the concept. Francis seems to prefer a just peace to a just war, forestalling its expansion and flirtation with nuclear war.

We can but hope that these sane voices can unite a divided left into vacating the debate hall and returning to the streets to protest an imperialist war and the elites that profit at the expense of the masses. We cannot repeat the mistakes of 1914.

Greg Godels
zzsblogml@gmail.com

Truth Lost in the Muck

If the Pew Research Center polling is to be believed, a remarkable-- perhaps unprecedented-- change in US attitudes occurred between January and the end of March. In January, forty-nine percent of the US population thought that Russia was a mere competitor to the US. Another seven percent saw Russia as a partner. Today, seventy percent see Russia as “an enemy”! 

Where Republicans have tended in the past to carry over Cold War attitudes to the twenty-first-century Russian Federation, Democrats with a very unfavorable opinion on Russia now surpass Republicans with a similar view. Seventy-two percent of Democrats or those leaning Democrat see Russia unfavorably, with sixty-six percent perceiving Russia as “a major threat to the US.”

Interestingly, those who are older, better educated, and liberal are more likely to “see Russia as an enemy.”

While a shrill, uncritical media have amplified official hysteria over the February 24 invasion, Pew research shows that the negative view of Russia as a “major threat” has trended up for most of the last decade and a half. After the 2016 election, Democrats’ fears of Russia increased sharply and, of course, again now, with the invasion.

Whatever one thinks about the Russian invasion-- and one can credibly both deplore the invasion and the ensuing growing risk of escalating war while denouncing the US and NATO provocations and aggressions that preceded it-- the manufacturing of hatred for Russia orchestrated by US officialdom and the media demonstrates an enormous power to move public opinion with little regard to reality or responsibility. 

Russia has no military bases near US borders and has neither attacked or threatened to attack US personnel or property. Yet, the US government and NATO have portrayed Russia as a potential or actual enemy for most of this century. 

Beginning with the 2016 election of Donald Trump, the Democrats have elevated Russia to the source of all their failings or setbacks, leading the charge on damning everything Russian. Russia has become the great meddler: Russia meddled in the elections; it supported Trump; it spread disinformation and peddled influence. For leading Democrats, electoral victory was only denied because of Russia.

Of course, all the charges of Russian meddling proved false or insignificant. From embarrassing leaks of campaign shenanigans, from alleged Internet bot farms to Russian collusion with Trump, the Democratic Party claims were debunked or shown of little consequence. Nonetheless, the media charged ahead, legitimizing, exaggerating, and fabricating. Only those playing close attention or following alternative media would know that Russia-blaming was bogus, unworthy of note.

US rulers, self-anointed as guardians of the capitalist world order, have never forgiven Russia for its decisive role in defeating the US proxies in the Syrian war, prompting another example of a relentless media campaign misrepresenting interests, motives, and facts.

The media not only docilely parrots State Department and Defense Department explanations of Russia’s ill intentions, but dutifully masks the machinations of the new US Cold Warriors. For years, the US has encouraged the expansion of NATO, closing in on Russian borders, and arming hostile anti-Russian states surrounding Russia. The US military has staged war games near Russia and violated its airspace. The cable news commentariat and Sunday morning blowhards have neither noted this trend nor warned of its consequences.

Against the backdrop of this crude, unbalanced propaganda campaign, it should come as no surprise that a Russian invasion-- regardless of the history and circumstances-- should generate another round of demonization and hysteria. But the dimensions of the current media blitz-- a relentless depiction of the noble, heroic Ukrainians versus the brutal, inhuman Russians-- transcend all proportion.

Even a doctrinaire liberal obsessed with legalisms, like Professor Richard Falk, is surprised by the extreme, rabid vitriol directed at the Russians: “There have been other horrific events in the period since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, including Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Palestine yet no comparable clamor for criminal justice and punitive action.” While Falk accepts the conventional depiction of “clear criminality” on the part of the Russians, he is equally appalled at the “pure geopolitical hypocrisy on the other side.”

And hypocrisy it is. Writing on the same day (April 8) as Falk, Nick Turse recounts a US bombing of a city in Iraq in 2015 that “killed at least 85 civilians, may have injured 500 or more people, and reportedly damaged 1,200 businesses and 6,000 homes…”

Almost seven years after the attack, Hawija has never recovered, according to the new report. “The airstrike killed breadwinners and destroyed many workplaces and so cost many people their livelihood; because people’s homes had become uninhabitable, they became displaced; damage to the electricity network reduced civilians’ access to clean (and thus safe) drinking water,” it states. “This demonstrates how one single airstrike can cause reverberating civilian harm effects that last years, even generations.”

Both the horrific attack on Hawija-- one of countless civilian atrocities inflicted by the US military and its allies over many years and many wars-- and the recent FOIA revelations cited by Turse got or get none of the attention brought on by allegations of civilian casualties afflicted in today’s war in Ukraine. The US media has been silent, skeptical, or matter-of-fact over charges of civilian casualties inflicted by US or allied forces, even when the incidents were conceded by the US military!

Any careful reader or viewer of US media accounts of alleged Russian criminality must note that there is no independent investigation of the charges made or welcomed. The word of Ukrainian authorities is simply taken, with no hesitation or attempt made at securing secondary confirmation. The words “alleged,” “claimed,” or purported” -- hedge words associated with good journalism-- never appear before the reports made by Ukrainian officials.

On the other hand, claims by the Russian Ministry of Defense or other Russian authorities are nearly always followed by something like “Those claims couldn’t be confirmed independently.” Clearly different scales of evidence are being used.

Enormous pressure has been exerted on the more deliberate European leaders who have been hesitant to join the sanctions frenzy stirred by the US, UK, NATO, and Eastern European ultra-nationalists. For Italy, the charges by Zelensky of a massacre in Bucha, Ukraine were, without further substantiation, sufficient to move Italy to reduce its reliance on Russian oil and gas. Only Germany, Austria, and Hungary in the EU continue to resist imposing further hardships on their people to advance NATO’s militaristic aims.

Ukraine’s president, Zelensky, has attained rock-star status in the West with a tour of venues from parliaments to the Grammys, adding his TV-honed skillful appeals to the politician-concocted, media-transmitted message that Russia is the enemy of mankind. No Western talking head ever casts any doubt on Zalensky’s political legitimacy in the wake of the 2014 coup.

With NATO, Ukraine, and Russia arming at a maddening pace and the threat of an expanding war increasing exponentially, the shameless, truth-bending role of the media is irresponsible, if not criminal.

Yet, it should come as no surprise. In 2003, a similar overwrought, frenzied media campaign behind the US invasion of Iraq rallied a majority with a very thin tissue of lies at its foundation. In retrospect, it is difficult to remember even one journalist, outside of the fringes of the mainstream or with the alternative media, who dared to challenge the official, US government narrative. It should have been a profound refutation of the notion that we have a free and independent press. 

And recent Western media coverage of wars in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Gaza, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and Syria show the same slavish obeisance, the same conformity, underscoring the myth that capitalist journalism and objectivity belong in the same room.

Of course, the fusing of the private press and the government opinion-makers reaches its highest stage in the US. Moreover, it is not a new phenomenon, but one that has evolved with the concentration of media assets into complex monopoly-entertainment corporations.

Even farther back, during the Korean War, the flow of war “information” was contaminated with the taken-at-face-value, tainted statements of generals and politicians, as documented by I. F. Stone’s nearly-forgotten classic, The Hidden History of the Korean War, 1950-1951. Through a careful reading of news releases, press conferences, and date-lined reports, Stone was able to find the inconsistencies, the exaggerations, and the prevarications that passed for the official account of that war.

As perhaps the US’s foremost and most fearless liberal investigative reporter, Stone continued to puncture the smug, self-satisfied journalism of his and our era. He was one of the very few voices to challenge the Gulf of Tonkin fabrications that led to the massive escalation of the Vietnam War.

In response to a speech by President J. F. Kennedy before the American Newspaper Publishers Association after the Bay of Pigs debacle, Stone wrote:

Now it seems that no truly patriotic American, especially a newspaperman, is supposed to tell the truth once our government has decided that it is more advantageous to tell a lie. This is the real meaning of President Kennedy’s appeal to the American Newspaper Publishers Association for self-censorship in the handling of the news. (When the Government Lies, Must the Press Fib? -- May 3, 1961)

If Stone were alive today, he would be sickened by the utter servility of our media to power and wealth.

Greg Godels
zzsblogml@gmail.com

War in Ukraine: Will There be a Winner?

While debates rage unproductively over which side to support in the Ukraine war, the larger questions of who will ultimately gain and who will lose are becoming clearer.

Making matters most difficult is the fog of tricked-out misinformation flowing from all sides, reminding us of how capitalism has corrupted, vulgarized, and juvenilized the occupation of journalism.

At times in the twentieth century, there was a small, elite cell of adventuresome journalists who would draw satisfaction from risking life and limb to offer eye-witness accounts counter to the official narrative. A careful reader could allow for class bias, editorial meddling, and euphemism to construct a credible, independent picture of events or incidents.

Today, the number of independent journalists in that tradition can be counted on the digits of one or two limbs.

No one is sneaking into Mariupol to check on Ukrainian atrocity claims or sampling Russian death notices to challenge official numbers. Reports of military encounters are simply taken from government press releases or news conferences from the Ukrainian Ministries, NATO, or the Russian Ministry of Defense. The mainstream media is surfacing no Seymour Hershs or David Halberstrams. If they arose today, they would be summarily banished to celebrity chasing. Consequently, little is reported of high confidence, neither atrocity nor heroism.

To make matters worse, the swarm of “expert” commentators make little effort to place events in any context, historical or otherwise. We don’t know where the level of fighting, military progress and competence, civilian casualties, or physical destruction stand in relation to other recent wars or confrontations (for example, US or NATO wars) or in relation to reasonable expectations. We only have unsupported generalities and emotional, unsupported charges of “genocide,” “brutality,” or “war crimes.”

Nevertheless, we can avoid succumbing to wild media exaggerations while also drawing some useful conclusions from facts that are uncontested.

It is uncontested that Russia has, after a month of fighting, revised its plan, downscaling its goals. The Russian government has so stated. That fact implies that its initial plan was not successful, which implies, in turn, that the government misjudged the military balance of forces. The Ukrainian resistance was stronger, the Russian attackers were weaker, or both.

We can only speculate whether Russian military leaders thought that they would be met as liberators, that internal allies would rise up, that the West would offer no assistance, or that the Ukrainian military was decisively weaker than it proved to be. In any case, the war continues, with thousands, perhaps ten of thousands, dead and millions driven from their homes.

You don’t have to fall for the Western media circus that, like the skillful British propagandists of the 1914 War, depict the adversary as bloodthirsty rapists, pillagers, and child killers, to recognize that the public relations campaign for the hearts and minds of the West has been won by the US, NATO, and Ukraine.

The Blinken/Nuland State Department has successfully used a compliant media to shepherd the more level-headed, practical, and hesitant politicians in Germany, France, and Italy into joining the ultra-nationalist Eastern European Russia-haters in a crusade against Russia. Europe is now more militantly aligned against Russia than at any time since the height of the Cold War. Military budgets are swelling and economic, social, and diplomatic ties with Russia have been severed, with the US energy sector and war-making industry the biggest winner.

If US policy was to bait Russia into intervention-- and I think it was-- then the trap succeeded.

Whatever security goals the Russian government sought, the best that they will get are treaty guarantees that have no more gravitas with successive Ukrainian governments than the vague assurances of the past. A poor country armed with aged Soviet weaponry is now armed to the teeth with many of the latest and most effective NATO instruments of war.

Understandable concerns over the growing influence of ultra-nationalist Stepan Bandera admirers and the thugs and gangs that embrace Bandera’s World War II Nazi collaboration will now only grow with their further acceptance and integration into Ukrainian resistance to the invasion. The invasion has actually legitimized their role in fighting the Russian invaders, deflecting from their history of terrorism-- the opposite outcome from that projected by the Russian government in its explanations.

An already dubious democracy, Ukraine has stepped back, outlawing eleven opposition parties, including the Communist Party. It has condoned the harassment of Russian speakers and charged many with sabotage and betrayal.

War has eroded Russian civil liberties as well, with anti-war activists harassed and arrested.

The US’s favored war-by-other-means strategy-- comprehensive sanctions-- has cost Russia dearly, beginning with the killing of the Nord Stream II pipeline. Weaponizing sanctions to accomplish foreign policy goals has become a highly effective way for the US to impose its will. The US government manufactures warrants for sanctions for reasons often beyond ridiculous (the charge of “terrorism,” for example, is made and then instantly withdrawn with no evidence of changed behavior). Those sanctioned may even include parents or children of “bad” actors, a cruel application of kin punishment.

What is truly astonishing is how the US administration secured the collaboration of European leaders in approving sanctions against Russia that actually harm Europe more than Russia! Undoubtedly, this kind of distorted “unity” will rebound badly on both the US and the EU.

It must be noted that imperialist war always immediately benefits the participating leaders by distracting from their failings and rallying support around patriotic appeals. In this regard, Putin, Zalensky, Biden, and the other NATO leaders all drank from the cup of imperialist opportunism.

In the short run, Putin appears to be the determined defender of Greater Russian interests, Zalensky the heroic underdog facing the Russian Bear, and Biden the indignant defender of the cause of self-determination. But Putin and Zalensky have fat in the fire, necessitating an endgame before casualties, costs, or opposition grow too much. Only Biden benefits from an extended war, though his NATO allies may wake up to their sacrifices for US foreign policy aims.

As a wave of inflation follows the latest wave of COVID, threatening to further hammer the global economy and further erode living standards, attention is drawn from the failure of bourgeois politicians to offer all but the lamest of solutions to a war promising little but pain for the world’s workers.

Thousands rally in Athens against the imperialist war in Ukraine and against Greece’s involvement in an action organized by the Communist Party of Greece

As always, imperialist war only benefits the weapons purveyors and the predatory corporations, while bringing tragedy to the working classes. We must refuse to participate in our own destruction




Greg Godels

zzsblogml@gmail.com.

"Is Russia an Imperialist country?" -- That's Not the Right Question to Ask

V. I. Lenin’s pamphlet, Imperialism, remains the leading elaboration of the concept of imperialism for Marxists. It is the starting point for any discussion of the global dynamics of capitalism from the late- nineteenth century until today.

While capitalism has taken twists, turns, and even detours since Lenin’s time, the destination remains the same-- the exploitation of labor for profit, wherever workers and resources can be found. Capitalism’s evolution, concentration, growth, and uneven development are the necessary conditions for imperialism. Imperialism respects no social or political borders.

The pamphlet, Imperialism, captures the features of modern-- monopoly-- capitalism. Yet, many seemingly fail to read Lenin’s subtitle: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (International Publishers, 2004). They fail to grasp that Lenin is writing about, elaborating on, explaining a particular stage of capitalism, not characteristics of individual states. He is describing an historically bound period, a period in which capital in its mature, financially organized, monopoly form comes to dominate the entire world through the conquests of the “great powers.” In Lenin’s words:

…we must say that the characteristic feature of this period [imperialism] is the final partition of the globe-- not in the sense that a new partition is impossible-- on the contrary, new partitions are possible and inevitable-- but in the sense that the colonial policy of the capitalist countries has completed the seizure of the unoccupied territories on our planet… in the future only redivision is possible… (p. 76)

As Marx’s method demands, Lenin is addressing processes, tendencies-- in this case, a tendency for capital to not merely dominate nation-states, even regions, but the entire world. It is the completing or redividing that defines imperialism as an historical era, a process that-- through competition-- creates ever-changing alliances and blocs. In the final analysis, it is intense competition carried beyond national borders that may ultimately be settled with arms, by wars.   

These processes that Lenin associates with imperialism occur unevenly and in different forms. After the Bolshevik revolution, monopoly capitalism’s domination of the entire world was interrupted by the existence of the Soviet Union. An anti-Communist crusade on the part of the great capitalist powers ensued, but the underlying process remained the same: delivering every worker and peasant into the arms of monopoly and finance capital.

Again, after World War II, the growing power and influence of a socialist community proved decisive in the liberation of nearly all of what were once colonies of the great powers. New “independent” countries sprung up in Asia and Africa. But the underlying tendency identified by Lenin expressed itself again through a new expression of imperialism: neo-colonialism. 

Neo-colonialism maintained the old economic advantages for the dominating great powers, but without the burden of occupation and administration. “Spheres of influence,” a more benign term coined in the nineteenth century, captured the tendency for capital to penetrate every nook and cranny of the world, while masking the raw subjugation implied by “colonies.” Thus, a dependent “independence” was born, cemented more by economic necessity than naked coercion.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the most viable economic scaffold for independent development outside of the imperialist system was eliminated. Western commentators vigorously celebrated the prospect of unimpeded capitalist penetration to all countries without exception. Huge labor markets entered the capitalist system from Eastern Europe and from Asia, dramatically lowering the costs of goods, services, and most importantly, labor. 

Capitalism got a second wind, enjoying higher, more stable growth and profit rates. 

Capitalists scurried to pry open new markets, remove impediments to trade, accelerate foreign investments, secure mutuality in a manner unseen since the early decades of modern imperialism. Indeed, the later decades of the twentieth century resembled that earlier period of classical imperialism to many Marxists.

Ironically, capitalist triumphalism served to underscore the timelessness of Lenin’s theory of imperialism. Once again, the global economy was dominated by the mobilization of great powers, seeking economic advantage (exploitation) and spheres of influence. 

With the US, like Great Britain in its nineteenth-century glory, claiming the right to determine the terms of economic activity and trade for the world, a period of cooperation and peace was foreseen. On this view, the capitalist economic links and mutual dependency would serve to cement social and political relations and insure stability in international relations. A new world order would be welcomed by all and guaranteed by the US.

Those few in the West familiar with early-twentieth-century Marxist revisionism noted that this fiction was remarkably similar to Karl Kautsky’s theory of “ultra-imperialism,” a theory that the big powers would divide the world and settle the matter between themselves without friction or conflict. 

Lenin, much earlier, mocked this idea. When he wrote Imperialism in 1916, he saw the catastrophe of World War I as the decisive refutation of the idea of stable imperialism or imperialist equilibrium. 

Most of the Western, non-Communist left, alienated from Leninism and blind to historical parallels, scrambled to make sense of the “new” post-Soviet era, failing to connect it with the classical imperialism described by Lenin and his adherents. At a loss for a theory, they cryptically coined the vacuous term “globalization” to describe monopoly capital’s celebratory lap. 

Post-Marxist, post-Fordist, Postmodernist theories abounded. Some academic “Marxists” thought the late twentieth century ushered in an era of the withering of the nation-state. Others thought we were seeing the rise of a supra-state, Empire, a totalizing entity sprung on the world like an alien invader.

The celebration of capitalist triumphalism came soon to an abrupt end with the return of constant, near-endless wars and frequent political and economic crises. Along with the exit of “benign” imperialism, leftist theoretical fantasies faded.

Global trade shrank in the aftermath of the 2007-2009 crisis and tensions between capitalist countries grew over who would gain and who would bear the burden of a sluggish or stagnant global economy. Centrifugal forces in the EU split the EU from north to south.

Germany dominates EU policies, imposing one-size-fits-all austerity on diverse, unevenly developed states.

PRC’s impressive entry into the global capitalist economy and subsequent remarkable growth threatens US hegemony, creating intensified competition and tensions.

The US has sought to quell independent development outside of the global hierarchies, using surrogates, war-by-other-means: sanctions, boycotts, and tariffs. And with exceedingly obstinate resistance, the US engages its coup-fomenting apparatus or unleashes its military to shepherd those who dare to escape from the US constructed imperialist corral.

“New” great powers replaced or changed places with the line-up active in Lenin’s time. The EU, despite its member differences, scraped together an imperialist agenda under the US stewardship of NATO, as witnessed by its participation in the dismantling of Yugoslavia and its wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

Saudi Arabia, infused with petro-dollars, seeks to enforce its influence over its neighbors, demonstrated most recently by its bloody war in Yemen.

Even tiny Israel participates in the imperialist scramble by annexing territory from its neighbors and from the Palestinian people.

Where there is capitalism, there is a drive for territory, resources, labor, or influence.

As in Lenin’s time, countries fit into this chaotic, unstable cauldron in different ways-- sometimes as greater powers, sometimes as lesser powers or victims. Competition-- promotion or protection of economic interests-- stir this cauldron. 

In Imperialism, Lenin does not identify countries as “imperialist,” without qualification. It would violate his steadfast recognition of uneven development to do so. In Chapter VI, The Division of the World Among the Great Powers, he simply identifies those countries (the big six!) that have been most active between 1876 and 1914 in acquiring colonies.

He can be viewed as establishing an imperialist hierarchy, but this too can be misleading. Lenin, always attentive to historical contingency and shifting social forces, goes to some length to describe the variety within the “great powers”:

… great differences still remain; and among the six powers, we see, firstly, young capitalist powers (America, Germany, Japan) which progressed very rapidly; secondly, countries with an old capitalist development (France and Great Britain) ... and, thirdly, a country (Russia) which is economically most backward, in which modern capitalist imperialism is enmeshed, so to speak, in a particularly close network of pre-capitalist relations. (p.81) [my emphasis]

Lenin leaves no doubt that a country (czarist Russia) can be a big player in the imperialist scramble for colonies (or spheres of influence) while remaining a less-than-robust capitalist country with remnants or foretells of other (non-capitalist) economic formations or features. In other words, their place in the imperialist system is not strictly determined by their place in the capitalist hierarchy-- they can be a bright young capitalist star or a decadent, old star clinging to a brilliant past, while still playing a decisive role in the empire games.

It would be wrong, as some have argued, to mechanically take Lenin’s “five essential features” found in Chapter VII as giving a criterion for admission into some kind of imperialist club. It could not be clearer that Imperialism as a Special Stage of Capitalism is not about the status of individual countries in the imperialist system, but about imperialism as a whole.

Capital concentration, the merging of financial capital with industrial capital, the export of capital, international monopolies, and the territorial division of the world (spheres of interest) are features of the imperialist stage of capitalism, and not necessarily any individual country in the imperial project.

Countries-- small or large, developed or backward, endowed or impoverished-- play different roles at different times in the march of imperialism.

Whether it is czarist Russia (a mix of emerging capitalist relations in urban areas and only weakly exited feudal relations in rural areas) or Putin’s Russia (a stunted industrial capitalist economy, but with enormous essential resources), the capacity to participate in great power activity, to enlarge or protect spheres of interest, to confront other great powers is an unquestionable reality. To hide this reality-- this active participation in the conflict with other capitalist countries-- behind the facade that Russia does not meet the “five essential features” characterizing the imperialist era is sheer sophistry. 

Lenin is clear. Apart from the “great powers” are a host of countries whose “participation” in the imperialist system is complex. The dialectics of uneven development produces no ideal types.

 Lenin speaks of smaller players in the imperialist system that have diverse relations with imperialism. Some have their own colonies but “retain their colonies only because of the conflicting interests, frictions etc., among the big powers…” They risk losing their colonies to a new colonial “share-out” to the big powers (page 81). 

He also recognizes “semi-colonies” like Persia, China, and Turkey which were, in his time, nominally independent, but exploited profoundly by the big powers. He refers to them as “examples of transitional forms which are to be found in all spheres of nature and society”; they are in “a middle stage” (page 81). Today, all three have transitioned into bigger players in the capitalist firmament.

In his discussion of Argentina and Portugal, Lenin anticipates the mid-twentieth century Marxist concept of neo-colonialism, discussing how independent countries can be tied into the imperialist nexus as financially dependent or as a protectorate (page 85-86). 

Thus, Lenin shows, with great nuance, that imperialism is a dynamic global system, constantly in motion, and that countries participate in the system in many ways. The imperatives of monopoly capital enjoin all capitalist countries to seek advantage in the competition for resources, markets, and labor. In this struggle, there are those that become the biggest powers and dominate others through the exercise of their power. Lesser powers lose to the most powerful, but may aspire to challenge, nonetheless, or exercise their power over the less powerful. The system tends to engage all economies in relations of dominance and dependence. Competition breeds aggression and war. 

Lenin derisively notes the petty-bourgeois reformist tendency to separate imperialism from capitalism, to deny “the indissoluble bond between imperialism and the trusts, and, therefore, between imperialism and the very foundations of capitalism…” Without recognizing capitalism as the source of imperialism and war, anti-imperialism remains “a ‘pious wish’”. (page 111).

It might be useful to summarize this discussion by showing how a closer read of Imperialism might shed light on twenty-first century imperialism.

1. Twenty-first-century imperialism shares more features with the imperialism of Lenin’s time than differences.

2. Imperialism constitutes a system of global competition for resources, markets, and labor-power that pits capitalist countries against one another to establish spheres of interest and a better field of operation for its monopolies. The struggle instigated by the US for dominance of Ukraine involves monopolies in the energy sector and the weapons industry, as well as an attempt to secure and expand existing spheres of interest. While the US is the more powerful great power and the instigator, Russia is an aspiring great power drawn into invading a “transitional” country-- Ukraine. With successive corrupt governments, Ukraine has, since its independence, longed to be a protectorate of a great power, whoever offers the best bargain. At stake are the interests of the various ruling classes.

3. The argument popular among Western leftists over whether Russia is an imperialist country or an anti-imperialist country opposing US and EU imperialism is a sterile, scholastic debate. From a Leninist perspective, today’s Russia, like czarist Russia, is a nascent capitalist country vying for a position as a leading force in the scramble for markets and spheres of interest. Russia’s engagements in defiance of US imperialism-- in Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, etc.-- is just that: defiance of a rival. That powerful rivals are aggressively threatening Russia’s ambitions is notable, but of little bearing on the interests of the Russian, Ukrainian, US, or EU working class. 

4. In fact, the Ukraine war’s “progress” has-- as a Leninist perspective would predict-- dramatically and negatively affected the fate of workers globally. Millions of lives have been disrupted, harmed, or ended.

5. The demise of the Soviet Union has freed the hand of imperialism, producing a world substantially congruent with early-twentieth-century imperialism. Some of the players have changed or assumed different roles, but the logic of great-power imperialism is intact. Those of us who defend the historical role of the Soviet Union must dispel any remaining romantic attachment to today’s Russia. It participates in the global system of imperialism as a great power.

6. As Lenin warns, the attempt to separate imperialism from its capitalist roots destines anti-imperialism to ineffectuality-- “petty-bourgeois reformism.” Moralistic anti-imperialism, what Lenin calls “the last of the Mohicans of bourgeois democracy,” collapses into pacifism-- a posture good for the soul, but impotent against the schemes of the great powers. Today’s leftist celebration of a projected “multipolar” capitalist world is a further attempt to separate great-power rivalries from their roots in capitalist-- specifically, monopoly-- interests. Multipolarity was a feature of imperialism in the prelude to World War I. In fact, the attempt to impose multipolarity upon a world saddled with the domination of the British Empire was a critical factor leading to World War I.

7. The retreat from Leninism is essentially a retreat from socialism. Desperate, unfounded faith in (a) the efficacy of multipolarity, in (b) the hope of finding a principled anti-imperialist rallying point around an eviscerated, ravaged former socialist state now owned by mega-billionaires, in (c) the miraculous transformation of the existing money-driven, elite-led Western bourgeois parties, and in (d) the belief that the splintered, self-absorbed, multi-interest, multi-identity left can magically coalesce into a force for radical change are all products of a loss of confidence in the socialist project. 

The lessons of history and history’s most brilliant teachers are the best guides for the future we want. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Greg Godels

zzsblogml@gmail.com