The second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine led to several retrospective summaries of the war and recapitulation of the arguments about its justification. This should have involved an examination of the various claims made about its course over the two years and how they stand up today, but this was studiously avoided. If we take even a cursory look at these claims, we can see how the lies told by the Western media about the war have increasingly been shredded by reality. Instead of winning against a stupid and incompetent Russia the all-powerful NATO might be losing? But let us come to that presently.
The genocide in Gaza has to a great extent eclipsed the war while the bias and lying of the Western media has increasingly been impossible to hide. That the BBC live-streamed the Israeli case at the International Court of Justice but not the South African is just one example. While driving my car this morning Sky News reported that one hundred Palestinians had just ‘died’, which must be taken to refer to the killing by the Israeli army of their desperately starving victims attempting to get food from one of the few aid convoys the Zionists allowed through.
All this should provide grounds for clarifying the nature of the war in Ukraine but instead these have been treated as two entirely separate happenings, including by much of the left, which supports the actions of the United States in one and damns it in the other; excuses its intervention in one and rejects all its excuses in the other. And we are supposed to believe this makes sense.
So, the war in Ukraine is the war in Ukraine; and the genocide in Gaza is but the latest murderous assault on the Palestinian people that must be addressed by a Palestinian solidarity movement. The long adopted method of single issue campaigns, designed supposedly to involve the maximum number of people, is exposed as divorced from reality. Rather than help explain the world, it fragments reality and is an obstacle to understanding it. Without such understanding the fundamental cause of war – capitalism – will forever lurk in the background, smothered by the appearance of this or that conflict, inviting this or that ‘solution’ that often relies on the criminals who caused it.
Much of the Western left has supported the Ukrainian state, and Western intervention, which is now accepted in Washington and Kyiv as the only thing keeping it going, with repeated threats that it will lose very soon if Western weapons do not continue to come. Since money on its own does not kill Russians the reckless sponsorship of the war has been exposed because the Western powers no longer have the ammunition or other war materiel to keep Ukraine fighting.
Zelensky promises a new offensive in 2025 but the integrity of his armed forces might not last that long. Western powers are scrounging ammunition from various parts of the globe, but these simply mean that Ukrainians will keep on fighting and dying a little longer. The alternative is the provision of more advanced weapons such as longer-range missiles and F-16 aircraft but these cross previous red lines, risk Russian retaliatory escalation and will not lead to Ukrainian victory. In turn this risks further Ukrainian attempts to provoke greater Western intervention.
Threats to directly intervene with troops on the ground have only revealed that some have already been there and many of them have been killed. A Russian officer has already stated that “NATO military personnel, under the guise of mercenaries, participate in hostilities. They control air defence systems, tactical missiles and multiple launch rocket systems, and are part of assault detachments.” The loss of over 60 French ‘mercenaries’ has already been reported in Kharkiv. Now the German Chancellor Olaf Sholtz has let slip that the British and French are using their own troops to target and fire their missiles. And someone else has revealed discussions within the German armed forces to attack Russia.
What successes Ukraine have achieved, such as the sinking of Russian warships and scarce and expensive surveillance aircraft, could only have been accomplished with Western systems, intelligence and personnel. The most advanced weapons systems can only be used effectively by forces trained and familiar with them while their servicing and maintenance requires similar support. None of this has prevented increasingly rapid Russian advances on the ground.
Stopping, and reversing, this could not be achieved even by French, German, British or US troops on the ground without creation of a massive intervention force that these countries are currently in no position to construct and employ. This has not excluded repeated announcements of the possibility of Western troops being sent to take part directly in the fighting. This, even if on a limited scale, has the potential to lead to a World War. The piloting of F-16 fighters by NATO pilots, with the green light by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to attack targets in Russia, shows one path to escalation and war.
The prospect of Western infantry in Ukraine raised by Macron and shot down by others reflects awareness of the possibility of defeat, which Biden in particular has cause to fear, if this becomes clear before the November Presidential election. Even If Western escalation were partial, limited to occupation of Western Ukraine, Russia has the capacity to continue to move forward to achieving its aims, which would be expanded to account for a Western incursion.
Left supporters of the Ukrainian state face the defeat of what has, politically, become their own proxy in their imagined progressive struggle alongside Western imperialism. The presumed priority of Russian defeat would require massive Western imperialist intervention, with the risks discussed, and serves to justify the most reactionary nationalism in Eastern Europe (to be covered later).
Given the nature of the parties involved, exemplified in the massive disparity in power of the two forces, it is not Western imperialism that has become a proxy for the Left but the Left that has become a bourgeois proxy within the socialist movement. Such is the position this pro-imperialist Left has put itself by supporting a pro-Western capitalist state in a war and by also supporting the assistance provided to it by Western imperialism.
The split personality of this left can be seen in their support in the case of Ukraine and opposition in the case of Palestine, as if all the Western powers are confused as to what is in their interests. This disorder is as real for those that straight-forwardly support Ukraine and deny the proxy nature of the war as it is for those who directly express their confusion by both supporting the capitalist Ukrainian state while opposing the assistance of the capitalist states supporting it.
Defence of the Palestinian people will not be advanced by upholding in Ukraine the imperialist supporters of the Zionist state that is carrying out genocide, or by claiming that it is capable of playing a progressive role in one but not the other.
Of course, the genocide in Gaza is immediately more obvious and easier to argue, and especially more convenient for the moralistic approach that single-issue campaigns rely upon. But for exactly this reason it is important to show how the two require the same approach and are not two single issues but two expressions of the one oppressive system that must face one combined struggle against it.
Both are wars by proxies of US imperialism in order to defend its hegemonic position in Europe and the Middle East. Both reveal the poverty of its putative capitalist rivals. The Russian invasion is incapable of stirring the sympathy of the workers of the world, and China, as the ultimate target of the US, cannot politically defend the Russian invasion. In the case of Gaza, these putative leaders of the alternative pole of imperialist power have stood aside while the Zionist state commits genocide. Russia and China have not made even a significant symbolic gesture by expelling the Israeli ambassador, while its BRICS associate, Saudi Arabia, has facilitated trade with Israel to nullify the efforts of the Houthis in Yemen to block it. Iran has been as keen as the US to limit its opposition through its allies so that it can avoid war between them.
In both cases the Left, of almost all shades, sees no role for socialism in ending these capitalist wars but puts forward purely formal democratic proposals that do not go beyond capitalist solutions and have no bearing on reality. This includes the demand for ‘self-determination’ for Ukraine when the part of it allied to the West is already utterly reliant and subordinated to it.
In Gaza, the renewed murder and displacement of Palestinians has revived the debate over a two state or one state solution, neither of which are socialist and neither of which address the over-reaching power of the Zionist state, its US sponsors, or the opposition of the autocratic Arab regimes, which oppose the creation of any democratic Palestinian state lest it act as a beacon of inspiration for their own oppressed populations.
The hypocrisy that has been exposed by the two conflicts is a starting point to enlightening working people about the depraved and ruthless nature of the societies they live in, and that the scope and scale of the barbarity exposed is not accidental but is a fundamental feature. This means that only a complete reordering of society will work and that this is what the socialist alternative involves. If capitalist war does not demand and call for a socialist alternative then activists opposed to these wars will never be able to promise that one day they will end.
Forward to part 2
Sráid Marx 
The contribution made by Boffy is always provocative though in need of correction. I make the suggestion that he leaves the pages of the most known Marxists for a few minutes and consult some other books of learning.
I suggest he reads carefully Natural Right and History by Leo Strauss in the light of his understanding of History. In that austere book, alternative accounts of justice are explored : abstract accounts of Natural Right are described; the Plato/Aristotle account, Ancient Natural Right, the medieval account of Natural Law, Aquinas, then the various modern accounts of Natural Right, bourgeois natural rights, the modern version of Natural Rights that have made into the constitution of the United States and is enshrined in the doctrines of international law.
Strauss then provides the thoughts of the ’eminent conservatives’ including the political thinking of Edmund Burke. The eminent conservatives who made up the Historical School rejected the abstract and doctrinaire ‘theories’ of the modern natural right philosophers on the ground of both politics and philosophy. Instead of doctrines like the universal rights of man, they sought historical standards of judgement when it came to knowing what justice might be.
Boffy is not an eminent conservative but he is an historical materialist and so he is forced by logic to side with the conservatives when it comes to doctrinaire accounts of universal law based on modern natural rights. His last sentence seems to confirm the conclusion. The moralists who can only think along abstract lines can’t deal with reality, by reality Boffy means something like historical reality.
The following passage from Natural Right was not intended as a refutation of historical materialism, rather it was intended as a question put to the eminent conservatives like Burke, but it still carries over to an historical materialism :
‘But history proved utterly unable to keep the promise that had been held out by the historical school. The historical school had succeeded in discrediting universal or abstract principle; it had thought that historical studies would reveal particular or concrete standards. Yet the unbiased historian had to confess his inability to derive any norms from history : no objective norms remained. The historical school had obscured the fact that particular or historical standard can become authoritative only on the basis of a universal principle which imposes an obligation on the individual to accept, or to bow to, the standards suggested by the tradition or the situation which has molded him……Thus all standards by History as such proved to be fundamentally ambiguous and therefore unfit to be considered standards……The only, standards that remained were of a purely subjective character, standards that had no other support than the free choice of the individual. No objective criterion henceforth allowed the distinction between good and bad choices. Historicism culminated in nihilism.’ Natural Right and History.
The conclusion stated by Boffy above is pursued by a similar historicism and nihilism. And it is not clear to me he can outrun it.
Looking at the crisis in respect of Ukraine and Palestine one can try and sort things out by invoking modern natural right universal standards ; the right of national right of self-determination is no more than a deduction of the liberal rights of Man doctrine, the doctrine that aroused the critics of the historical school.
One can of course pretend that one’s standard of judgement is an objective one, and not a subjective and expedient one , this is what imperialism repeatedly does, the principle of self determination is no more than a subjective and often cynical plaything of the major powers ie in practice it is neither objective or universal, and it has always been that way.
The alternative approach begins by suspending any pretence that there are any universal principles of right and arrive at a political conclusion using available historical evidence i.e. concretely. What would matter most would be the political and class leaders calling the shots and making the decisions and not some pretend respect for liberal humanist doctrine.
In respect of Ukraine then, what really matters is the right-wing political vanguard that controls the State apparatus and not adherence to a phony doctrine conceived as a universal principle of self national determination. The historical or concrete approach might indicate No Solidarity for Ukraine because the Vanguard in charge is in fact a proto fascist one. In short the historical evidence trumps any universal principle of natural right applied theoretically to Ukraine.
Then what of Palestine, it is common for socialists and liberal humanists to offer solidarity and support on the basis of the same universal and abstract right of self-determination. However in the historical and concrete sense the political vanguards active in controlling Palestine are just as unacceptable, they too are as ‘reactionary’ as in Ukraine, this would apply not just to Gaza but also in the West Bank. Looking at things in the light of the historical evidence there be a conclusion that there can be No solidarity for a Gaza because it is controlled by right wing reactionaries.
The Historical or concrete approach to human affairs is exposed to the same intellectual objections raised by Strauss to the philosophy of the Historical School of eminent conservatives. And practically one can also see that the Zionists would hardly object to the withdrawal of socialist solidarity on behalf of Palestine, likewise the Putin regime would be pleased to see Ukraine left all alone in the world without support.
A possible third choice would be to impute a type of universal historical right to the world working class, this ‘substitute natural right’ may be as abstract as bourgeois natural right yet still potentially concrete. Starting with the first workers commune in France, and taking into consideration later working class experiences , one might argue there now exists enough objective evidence indicating a set of principles that are more than just relative and expedient. I use the phrase ‘impute’ a doctrine of universal right to the working class, this is a term Lukacs used to describe the consciousness of a world working class.
Finally I am not a Straussian, I merely recognise the strength of his books. One of the reasons for Natural Right and History can be said to be a debunking of the authority of Edmund Burke, thought to be the intellectual leader of a revised conservatism that was being championed in America of the 1950s and 1960s by people like Russell Kirk. What Strauss was saying was that Burke was not good enough, his arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny.
“by reality Boffy means something like historical reality.”
Better that than a reality constructed in the mind that does not have any basis in the real world. As Marx put it, to Proudhon, in The Poverty of Philosophy,
“Economists explain how production takes place in the above-mentioned relations, but what they do not explain is how these relations themselves are produced, that is, the historical movement which gave them birth. M. Proudhon, taking these relations for principles, categories, abstract thoughts, has merely to put into order these thoughts, which are to be found alphabetically arranged at the end of every treatise on political economy. The economists’ material is the active, energetic life of man; M. Proudhon’s material is the dogmas of the economists. But the moment we cease to pursue the historical movement of production relations, of which the categories are but the theoretical expression, the moment we want to see in these categories no more than ideas, spontaneous thoughts, independent of real relations, we are forced to attribute the origin of these thoughts to the movement of pure reason.” (p 97-8)
Citizen Flanagan looks to that pure reason in the same way.
“What then does M. Proudhon give us? Real history, which is, according to M. Proudhon’s understanding, the sequence in which the categories have manifested themselves in order of time? No! History as it takes place in the idea itself? Still less! That is, neither the profane history of categories, nor their sacred history! What history does he give us then? The history of his own contradictions. Let us see how they go, and how they drag M. Proudhon in their train.” (p 106-7)
“The conclusion stated by Boffy above is pursued by a similar historicism and nihilism. And it is not clear to me he can outrun it.”
Not true at all. Historicism and nihilism would imply that I feel that there is nothing that can be done, but accept fate. The opposite is true. The whole point of Marxism is to provide a real basis of struggle, i.e. to point out the proletarian solution, and fight for it, in opposition to the bourgeois/nationalist/idealist solutions that may seem to be morally appealing, or more “practical”, i.e. opportunist, but which, precisely because they are not grounded in material reality, have no prospect of providing a solution for workers.
As Trotsky put it, unless we overthrow capitalism/imperialism, we shall have war. It doesn’t mean that we should lie back and accept it, but precisely to oppose it, but to oppose it not as idealist pacifists, but as historical materialists, showing that only the overthrow of capitalism offers workers a solution. That does not mean that, having failed to overthrow capitalism, and so capital itself producing the solution, that solution will itself, produce conditions that are historically progressive, that will enhance the potential for workers to provide their own solution.
Again that does not mean taking a fatalist position of well, it doesn’t matter because Socialism is inevitable in the end, anyway. It requires human action. Its the difference between the Marxist position as set out by Trotsky in relation to China, as against the Stalinist/Bukharinist position which excused their mistakes by saying, Oh well, its all part of the process towards the socialist revolution.
What Ukraine and Palestine shows, along with hundreds of other cases is that the right of self-determination is a fiction, and were it a reality, it would now be a reactionary reality. Ukraine, as with Palestine has no actual right of self-determination as the invasion of both by different powers indicates. As Marx put it, in the end, club law rules, whether in the open variant of actual club law, o the civilised, sophisticated, bourgeois-democratic version that hides behind parliamentary procedure, and claims of an international rules based system, whilst perpetually breaching those rules, and imposing itself with cruise missiles and 2000 pound bombs.
“Looking at things in the light of the historical evidence there be a conclusion that there can be No solidarity for a Gaza because it is controlled by right wing reactionaries.”
A non sequitur. It only means no solidarity with those right-wing reactionaries. Marxists seek to establish in Gaza, as elsewhere, a revolutionary proletarian alternative to them, and to give solidarity to those forces instead.
The latest senior moment from Biden was illustrative as he was talking about dropping aid into Gaza, but, instead referred to Ukraine.
On the question of “progressive”, I would make the following point. When Europeans mostly wiped out Native Americans, socialists would not have advocated such action. However, the consequence of it, was the more rapid and effective industrialisation of North America. Sherman was a form of American Bonaparte, required to wipe out the Native Americans who stood in the way of construction of the transcontinental railway. The development of US capitalism has been a progressive development.
Marx makes a similar point against Proudhon in The Poverty of Philosophy, in respect of the role of slavery in the Americas, without which Marx notes the development of the US, and cotton production would have been impossible, and so the industrial revolution would not have happened.
Trotsky makes a similar point about the counter-revolution in China, in the 1920’s. We wouldn’t have sought it, but it laid the basis for a “stabilisation” and development of the Chinese economy, and, thereby, created the conditions for a strengthening of the Chinese workers etc.
As I have written recently, if the Zionists backed by US and European imperialism wipe out the Palestinians in a similar way to the way they wiped out other indigenous peoples in the Americas and Australasia, that would be brutal and sickening and not something that socialists could support, but the end result would be a “stabilisation” the outline of which is apparent already of imperialism fostering closer ties between Israel, Saudi etc., and so an economic development of the region. That would provide a basis for a growth and strengthening of the working-class and labour movement in the region, and would probably also make the existence of Zionism itself impossible, in Israel. Just as such confessional states such as in Ireland became untenable with more rapid economic development. It would, therefore, be a progressive development, despite its horrible origins. But, then capitalism itself has horrible origins.
The moralists, of course, can’t accept such a reality, which is why they continue to parade their fantasies about a two-state solution.
I was a passenger in a car and I happen to sneer at houses sporting both Ukraine and Palestine flags. The driver asked what my problem was and said both were flown in solidarity with a small nation fighting back against an imperialist bully. I replied that your notion of imperialism was silly, drawn from the school playground, a big lad kicking the head in of a smaller one. It is an uphill struggle to change the dominant narrative about Ukraine. Even those who complain about asylum seekers typically exempt people from Ukraine.