Ukraine, Biden’s cannon fodder; and Putin’s shield

Ukraine, Biden’s cannon fodder; and Putin’s shield

For the end of war and barbarism

Masses 660 – Editorial – March 20^th , 2022

War, without destruction, death and suffering of the population, is not war. Wars have accompanied humanity since forever. The most definite wars, however, are expressions of class societies. Wars can be of domination or liberation, progressive or regressive. The bourgeoisie only embodied the wars of liberation, when it was the revolutionary class that fought against the archaic feudal system. This new class resorted to wars to free the productive forces from feudal relations of production, and to build national states. The United States, for example, had to fight a war of liberation from English domination; and a civil war to end black slavery.

Once the historic stage of the conformation of capitalism was over, the wars gestated by the bourgeoisie took on the character of domination by a handful of great powers over the vast majority of nations, therefore, regressive wars. The imperialist phase of capitalism is full of wars of domination, the two world wars being its highest expression. Due to their large-scale domination and destruction of productive forces and human lives, the two world wars showed that capitalism is historically exhausted and that it pushes humanity towards social barbarism in order to survive.

In World War I, the Russian proletariat, united with the poor peasants, fought the civil war against the monarchy and then against the bourgeois government, which was installed in February 1917, with the banner of “peace without annexations”. The working class, being in power, had to defend itself in the face of the imperialist siege of the revolution. The transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war for the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie was one of liberation.

In the midst of the barbarism of the imperialist war, the anti-barbarism war germinated. In the same sense, it happened with the heroic war of liberation of China, against the Japanese, English and North American domination, in the middle of the Second World War. Another example of a war of liberation was the war of anti-imperialist resistance in the Balkans, through which the State of Yugoslavia was formed, which today does not exist, thanks to the civil war of domination, encouraged and controlled by the United States and European allies of the NATO. In all these cases of war of liberation, the presence of a revolutionary leadership is necessary, without which the proletariat and the oppressed population cannot organize, arm themselves and win.

These historical foundations of revolutionary principle, strategy and tactics were developed by Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik party, in a situation of imperialist war of domination and a war of proletarian liberation. They fully apply to the war in Ukraine. As in any war, it is necessary, however, to highlight its particularities.

The imperialist press makes a daily campaign of exposing the ruins, the civilian targets hit, the deaths of mothers, children, old people, besieged cities, and the wave of desolate refugees. President Zelensky is received by the US, British and German parliaments to denounce the humanitarian crisis and seek a condemnation of Russia at the Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. Human rights organizations want Putin to be denounced for a war crime at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The press spread Biden’s speech, accusing Putin of a “war criminal”, “a murderous dictator”, “a bandit who is waging an immoral war against the people of Ukraine.” The Russian government replied: “The president of a country that for many years has bombed people all over the world has no right to lecture Russia on morals.” The United States will never sit in the dock of the Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, even though it is the biggest butcher in the world.

The bottom line is that Biden has turned the Ukrainian people into cannon fodder for his policy of expanding NATO and siege of Russia. And Putin uses the barbaric war in Ukraine as a shield to defend Russia’s capitalist interests. Undoubtedly, there is a difference between the cannon fodder and the shield, but fundamentally they express the war of domination.

The destruction of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is at the root of the conflict between the imperialist United States and restorationist Russia. It is in the American power’s interest that Russia sinks into Ukraine, and bears the world responsibility for having carried out destruction and killing. And Russia will thus have to bear barbarism, because it used the oppressed nation as a shield. Through the methods and policy of national oppression, there is no way to defeat the United States and its European alliance. A neutrality agreement will be provisional, and will not prevent the siege, which is already powerful. The former Soviet republics will not fail to serve as instruments of the imperialist West.

Without the working class organized and united against the offensive of the powers, it has not been possible to transform the war of domination into a war of liberation. The campaign of the Liaison Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International*however, plants the seeds of proletarian internationalism, although marching against the tide of events. From this world confrontation, awareness among the exploited about the need to build their revolutionary parties will be awakened. Only the masses fighting against capitalist exploitation and national oppression will be able to oppose the warlike tendencies of decaying capitalism. Only the working class, fighting for socialism, leading the exploited masses, can put an end to wars.

*English translation for “Comitê de Enlace pela Reconstrução da IV Internacional” – CERQUI