Over on the Tendance Coatesy blog a debate on the war has been taking place. After over 90 comments Andrew, the host, made a short comment that finished with:
‘The whole thing is simple: they invaded. They are wrong. We should do everything to stand with Ukraine.’
So there you go. The whole argument that supporting ‘Ukraine’ does not follow inescapably from opposing the Russian invasion has passed Andrew by. The argument about why the invasion took place, its causes, results and consequences are ignored.
What is this ‘Ukraine’ we are asked to support, and should workers support capitalist states, are questions likewise ignored, as is why the imperative to support ‘Ukraine’ also requires support for intervention by western imperialism.
Why are they wrong? What is the harm caused and what use, if any, does Marxism have in determining this, and setting out what should be done about it? Is there any class analysis that would distinguish our determining what is wrong from the wall to wall blitz of the capitalist media and its nauseating hypocrisy? Or is it really so ‘simple’ that there are no differences between the socialist view and the propaganda of Western capitalism, so that supporting ‘Ukraine’ is so simple a thing that it requires no interrogation?
All these questions are avoided by ignoring the debate in the previous 90 odd comments; but the attempt to simplify things fails because it is simply a device for avoidance. Like the bourgeois media it attempts to compel us to forget how we got here, the nature of the warring parties and their objectives; leaving us with the impression that the consequences of supporting the Ukrainian state and western imperialism will be their claims to bring about ‘freedom’. As I have repeatedly pointed out: only one fact matters for those who proclaim support for ‘Ukraine’–there has been an invasion and we should oppose it beside everyone else who does.
One other contributor, Jim Denham, shows no fear in stating more clearly what this means in political terms, in the process showing that the emperor is naked and certainly wearing no socialist arguments. In a comment, I accused him of believing that ‘the Ukrainian capitalist state and imperialism are defending the Ukrainian working class”. To which he replies – “OF COURSE they effin’ well are – for their own reasons – right now. WE warn that this will not last, but the Ukranian workers are right to make use of it. What sort of fantasy world do you live in?”
Well, to answer his last point first–the sort of fantasy world in which capitalist states and imperialism doesn’t defend the working class but sends it out to fight and die on their behalf. To believe that on this question, in the midst of the largest war since 1945, involving dozens of countries and threatening to escalate into a world conflagration; that in these circumstances imperialism is defending the working class of the world is not simply very unlikely, it is impossible. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence but there’s been plenty of the former and a dearth of the latter.
It is always admitted that western imperialism is doing the right thing for its ‘own reasons’ but its supporters who think that the stars of imperialism and the working class have simply aligned are like believers in astrology who divine from this alignment that everything will be alright. They don’t say what these interests of imperialism are; in other words, they don’t say what imperialism will do if it wins. Nor do they allow into their consciousness the reality that victory for imperialism will mean it will be free to enjoy the fruits of its victory, achieve its purposes, satisfy its ‘reasons’, and impose its interests.
The idea that the Ukrainian working class, which is not even independently politically organised, would, upon ‘victory’, then drop its support for the Ukrainian capitalist state and shed its nationalism is too ludicrous to believe; which is why it is never explained how it would happen. The war and the support for it is already being employed to destroy general democratic rights, workers rights, and impose privatisation and austerity. War is sending thousands upon thousands of working class Ukrainians to their deaths, and opposition to all this can only come from opposing it. In this, they will face the opposition of the western pro-war Left, for whom nothing is more important, and everything is subordinated to, the ‘simple’ task of helping Ukraine win the war.
So, if imperialism was victorious, as this pro-war Left earnestly desires, what would the results be? What reason is it fighting that apparently can accommodate, and not conflict with, the interests of the working class?
This is easy to answer, because we have history to guide us and US imperialism has been quite open about why it is spending so much money supporting Ukraine–“because Russians are dying . . . the best money we’ve spent”. Defeat for Russia would bring forward regime change that would allow the placing of another Yeltsin stooge and subordination of Russia to western imperialism. It would reintroduce the shock therapy that previously devastated the country, causing catastrophic levels of poverty and reduced life expectancy.
In Ukraine it would boost western imperialist interests and continue the subordination of the country that had suffered, by 2021, a reduction in Gross Domestic Product of 38 per cent from the 1990 level, when the country became independent. This calamitous fall compares with a corresponding increase for world GDP of 75 per cent; so by 2021 the per capita GDP of Ukraine was roughly equal to that of Paraguay, Guatemala and Indonesia.
It would then mean that the real target of imperialism–China–would be surrounded and more easily isolated and vulnerable to the subordination that Russia had previously suffered and would suffer again in defeat. All this would mean the continuation of war and devastation of the lives of the millions affected.
Opposition to this imperialist project owes nothing to sympathy or solidarity with the Russian or Chinese capitalist states but to the working classes of both countries, to the workers of others who would also suffer from the subordination of their countries, and the working class within the western imperialist countries who would be tied more firmly to their own exploitation, with the suppression of freedom that comes from imperialist oppression abroad.
Opposition to the imperialist intervention in Ukraine is not therefore on behalf of the Ukrainian state, or the Russian state, or the Chinese state. It is for the working class of each of these countries, providing a basis for their future unity. Support for war can only promote their division.
Karl Marx, in the Communist Manifesto, argued that ‘Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.’
The momentary interests of the working class require an end to the war, while taking care of the future requires we don’t cheerlead imperialism.
But if none of this matters, if matters are simple, and if the workers of the world can rely on imperialism until perhaps they can’t, then knock yourself out and support ‘Ukraine’.
Forward to part 2
Sráid Marx 
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In contrast to Jim Denham’s assertion that imperialism and the capitalist state defends the workers, a useful antidote is what Lenin and Trotsky wrote, as set out by Trotsky in Lenin and Imperialism – https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/02/lenin.htm
“The objective historical meaning of the war is of decisive importance for the proletariat: What class is conducting it? and for the sake of what? This is decisive, and not the subterfuges of diplomacy by means of which the enemy can always be successfully portrayed to the people as an aggressor. Just as false are the references by imperialists to the slogans of democracy and culture. “… The German bourgeoisie … deceives the working class and the toiling masses by vowing that the war is being waged for the sake of … freedom and culture, for the sake of freeing the peoples oppressed by czarism. The English and French bourgeoisies … deceive the working class and the toiling masses by vowing that they are waging war … against German militarism and despotism.” A political superstructure of one kind or another cannot change the reactionary economic foundation of imperialism. On the contrary, it is the foundation that subordinates the superstructure to itself. “In our day … it is silly even to think of a progressive bourgeoisie, a progressive bourgeois movement. All bourgeois democracy … has become reactionary.” This appraisal of imperialist “democracy” constitutes the cornerstone of the entire Leninist conception.”
And,
“If revolutionary and progressive movements beyond the boundaries of ones own country could be supported by supporting ones own imperialist bourgeoisie then the policy of social patriotism was in principle correct. There was no reason, then, for the founding of the Third International.”
Of interest in relation to Ukraine is Trotsky’s noting of Lenin’s comment,
“Imperialism camouflages its own peculiar aims – seizure of colonies, markets, sources of raw material, spheres of influence – with such ideas as “safeguarding peace against the aggressors,” “defense of the fatherland,” “defense of democracy,” etc. These ideas are false through and through. It is the duty of every socialist not to support them but, on the contrary, to unmask them before the people. “The question of which group delivered the first military blow or first declare war,” wrote Lenin in March 1915, “has no importance whatever in determining the tactics of socialists. Phrases about the defense of the fatherland, repelling invasion by the enemy, conducting a defensive war, etc., are on both sides a complete deception of the people.” “For decades,” explained Lenin, “three bandits (the bourgeoisie and governments of England, Russia, and France) armed themselves to despoil Germany. Is it surprising that the two bandits (Germany and Austria-Hungary) launched an attack before the three bandits succeeded in obtaining the new knives they had ordered?””
That this has no meaning for liberals and apologists like Paul Mason or Coatesy, who have become simply tools of NATO imperialism, in the same way that their mirror images have become useful idiots for Putin and XI, is one thing. The former openly declare their hostility to Marxism-Leninism from having been former Trotskyists, but Jim Denham and his gang continue to pollute the name of Marxism-Leninism/Troskyism by proclaiming their continued adherence to it, despite having spent decades systematically distorting it. So it is always worth exposing their lies.
I looked at Boffy’s last comment, and think there is some sort of intellectual crisis of Marxism to be discussed here. He gives one recent example of Paul Mason, a trained Marxist in the sense of once being a member of Workers Power. Sraid Marx also refers to self identifying Marxists not understanding the principles of Marxism correctly, evident in regard to the Fourth International over Ukraine. Another recent example would be the obviously corrupt leaders of the BLM self identifying as ‘trained Marxists’. How indeed do you the training in the correct principles of Marxism? There are many people saying they are trained Marxists and yet still happily supporting one side in the war in Ukraine. Marxism seems to be always in a state of intellectual crisis and jeopardy.
Any science is going to have disputes over interpretation and categorisation. If its truly a science, it is also open to development. Einstein showed that Newton was not “wrong”, but not also not entirely right, either. But, a science that sets out its basic method of analysis, as Marx and Engels do with Historical Materialism, as Darwin does with biological materialism, and then on the basis of that method, develops the basic categories – value, exchange-value, labour, labour-power, surplus value, money and so on – requires that those that claim to be adherents of it, apply those categories as defined, or else show rigorously that on the same methodology, the original definitions/categories were wrong or inadequate.
What cannot be accepted is clearly defining those categories in terms other than those originally determined, without both saying that you are doing so, and, then, justifying why you are doing so. In terms of Political Economy, Paul Mason has failed to understand the basic categories, and defines them in completely false terms. Similarly, on the same basis of that method, Marxists arrived at principles of what represented the interests of the working-class, including the requirement for its independence and self-activity. That was not sucked out of Marxists thumbs, but derived from the lived experience of millions of workers, in the Revolutions of 1848, and was further confirmed and updated with the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, and again confirmed – this time negatively – in China in 1927, and Spain in 1936.
These principles are set down in the resolutions of the first four congresses of the Comintern. Now, again, Stalinists may claim to have developed different principles after that date, which then comes down to whether you accept that the Stalinists have actually operated on the basis of the scientific method of Marx and Lenin or not. I clearly believe that it is not difficult to show that they have not. In the same way, I believe that it is not difficult to show that all those, I am now loathe to describe them as “on the left”, who have tried to justify their support for the Ukrainian capitalist state, and its NATO backers, as much as those that have tried to justify their support for Putin’s Russia, have also not operated on the basis of those principles, have not conformed to the principles set out in the first four congresses of the Comintern, and so on.
For some of those, especially the younger comrades, many of whom are students and subject to the petty-bourgeois milieu and mentality of moralism, and who are also heavily influenced by the much more experienced older leadership of organisations they belong to, that can simply be error, lack of experience and knowledge and so on. However, for others, particularly the older members of those organisations, it often cannot be put down to that, just as with the Stalinists what first arose as mistakes, turned into deliberate lies and betrayal. Trotsky once said that if in 1917, Stalin had known what he would become, he would have blown his own brains out.
And then we have the factor that especially in very small organisations, especially petty-bourgeois organisations such as those we have now, it has always been the case that the capitalist state has agents operating within them. In the 1980’s, the state had at least 200 paid agents working in the upper teirs of the British labour movement alone, and we all know about their operation in various environmentalist groups and so on. Students have always been open season for the state to recruit spooks. Given the desperate state of the labour movement following the defeats of the 1980’s, is it any wonder that these tiny sects have fallen prey to such activity, which requires very little to control the head so as to control the whole group. Its hard otherwise to explain the about face of many of those involved from earlier correct positions, without explanation.
I have another query. The principles as laid out at the four congresses of the communist international are surely not ‘eternal ones’. They relate to a certain set of conditions that prevailed in the 1920s. At that time the principles were not unrelated to Lenin’s ‘theory about capitalism’ having entered its monopoly stage, a state of political reaction and decline. Likewise with Trotsky, only his accounts of capitalist imperialism tender to wonder around a good deal, later on he seems to have prepared to run with Lenin’s monopoly one because that theory does not at a fundamental clash with his own understanding of capitalism being in a state of decay.
My point being that your self and the author of this blog have been critical of ‘marxist’ theories of the decline of capitalism and the strategic politics that has accompanied those decline theories. I won’t labour the point, just refer to your opposition to Michael Roberts falling rate of profit explanation of the recent problems within capitalism.
It might be ‘necessary’ because there is a current need ideological to halt the escalation in war measures being taken by various States in relation to the war over the future of Ukraine in return to the language and explanations of the Bolshevik theories of the 1920, about both the economy and the bourgeois State, yet I see a certain intellectual trap therein. One might simply do what those Trotsky acolyte’s at the World Socialists Website typically do. That what Trotsky had to say about capitalism in the 1920s and 1930s was correct then and the conditions facing us today are more or less identical so he his theories are correct today. I had thought we had moved on from pretending that Trotsky is uniquely perspicacious.
In those exchanges, I began by asking Coatesy whether he supported the line taken by Paul Mason of demanding that Labour candidates sign an oath swearing to support Labour increasing defence spending and an increased role for NATO. Paul Mason has become, at least quite open about what support for Ukraine means, and this requirement to boost defence spending by the capitalist state, and increased role for NATO, and he is even open about where this goes in terms not only of confronting Russia, but also China, i.e. it heads to WWIII. I also asked Jim Denham that question. No reply was forthcoming, until Denham responded to your question.
If as we now know he, and his gang, the AWL are open supporters of the capitalist state and NATO as being defenders of the working-class whether for their own reasons or not, then you have to accept Paul Mason’s logic. If the capitalist state and NATO are the defenders of the working-class then you have to vote for war credits, you have to vote for a much bigger UK defence budget, and the same in terms of NATO so that it can defend the interests of workers even better!
Of course, that was not the position of Marx, Engels, Lenin or Trotsky. For Coatesy that doesn’t seem to matter, because he is happy to agree with Liberals in attacking Lenin and Trotsky, as being irrelevant at best, and wrong at worst, and to at least not challenge those Liberals when they likewise challenge the validity of Marxism itself. Paul Mason has already made that transition to Liberalism. But, theoretically, Denham and the AWL pretend continued adherence to Leninist/Trotskyist principles, even though a large part of their activity in the last 30 years has been to systematically distort the ideas of Trotsky on an industrial scale.
Trotsky argued, for example, against capitalist states intervening in the Balkans in 1912, to assist the liberation movements there against the Ottoman empire. He argued vociferously against the idea that workers/socialists should give any credence to such action, even if those capitalist powers were facilitating the liberation of the masses, “for their own reasons”.
A decade and a half later, in China, Stalin/Bukharin put forward an identical position to that put forward by Denham, and again Trotsky annihilated it. They argued that the KMT of Chiang Kai Shek, represented a “bloc of four classes” in China, all of whose interests had been unified by the fact of China’s oppression by foreign imperialism, and the need to undertake a war of national independence against it. This is what Coatesy, Denham and he USC say in relation to Ukraine. In other words, there is no antagonistic classes in Ukraine, currently, as they have all been united in a “bloc of four classes” by the Russian invasion, and Zelensky’s government like that of the KMT is its representative, waging that national struggle.
But, Trotsky pointed out that the KMT was not a “bloc of four classes” at all, but the party of the Chinese bourgeoisie, and represented its interests alone. That is the case with Zelensky’s government and its attacks on the rights of Ukrainian workers is an example of it. Yes, Trotsky said, to the extent that the KMT fought against imperialism, it also fought for the same things that the Chinese workers and peasants desired, even if for its own reasons, but that was no reason for Chinese Communists to subordinate themselves to it, or not to organise separately from it, knowing that, at a point of its choosing, it would betray the national struggle and turn its guns on them. But, Trotsky pointed out, the KMT was not really fighting imperialism, because the Chinese bourgeoisie was inextricably tied to imperialist capital operating in China, and its interests were ultimately far more closely aligned with that than they were with Chinese workers interests, particularly were those workers to begin pressing their own specific interests.
Stalin/Bukharin made the same argument that Denham/AWL have made that, we know that they are only doing this for their own interests, and at some point those interests will diverge, but for now they coincide, and it will only be necessary to do something else, when that happens. But, as Marx had set out in 1850, and as Trotsky points out the Bolsheviks argued in 1905 and 1917, waiting until that point arrives, is too late. It is necessary for the workers, and revolutionary masses to organise separately from, and pursue their own specific interests from the beginning of any such struggle.
In China, just a week after Stalin/Bukharin had opposed Chinese workers doing that, and setting up their own soviets, insisting that they continue to support the KMT, Chiang Kai Shek’s government troops marched into Shanghai, dispersed the workers and their organisations, and slaughtered thousands of worker-communists, including public beheadings of them. Even after that, Stalin/Bukharin tried to defend this position that they knew that the KMT and bourgeoisie were only supporting the workers for their interests, by claiming that, now that they have broken from us, and carried out the coup, we can move on, and take the struggle to a new level!!!
Reports went to the Comintern that recruitment to the communist party had increased substantially following the coup. Unfortunately, as with much of the narrative of the USC and its supporters today, it was all lies designed to pretty up the reality. The Chinese Communist Party not only lost thousands of its best members, but never won back the support of the Chinese workers it had lost in this process, especially after it repeated the mistake with the Left KMT. As Trotsky pointed out, rather than simply telling workers that the bourgeoisie were only allies for their own reasons, and waiting for them to break, it was necessary to organise the workers separately from the beginning, not only to pursue their own separate interests, but to prepare to do battle with the KMT.
Trotsky understood the point that, even in a national liberation struggle, “The Main Enemy Is At Home”, in the form of the bourgeoisie. It is why, in such struggles we only support the truly revolutionary forces of the working-class.