Behind the call for a British ‘citizen army’

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In my previous post I noted that the logic of supporting the Ukrainian State, and the British state’s support for it, was to support the British state itself; just as the Ukrainian state itself committed itself to this in their joint security agreement.

Further evidence of the unfolding logic of support for Ukraine was provided by the text of an agreement by leftist organisations in Eastern Europe published on International Viewpoint.  On top of vague anti-capitalist aspirations, this noted that among its ‘top priorities is countering Russian aggression, which is destroying Ukraine and threatening the entire region. “The only reason why Russian troops have not yet attacked Poland or Romania is because of the US troops deployed there. We are convinced that the countries of our region must jointly build their own subjectivity and strength,”

The statement thus endorses the view that Russia is an immediate threat, that the people of the region are being protected by US imperialism, and that the countries should strengthen the military power of their states. There was no critique of any of these positions by the hosts of this statement and it is not hard to understand why.

The ‘Fourth International’, whose publication International Viewpoint is, agrees that Russian imperialism is responsible for the war, that the Ukrainian state should be defended and that the support of US imperialism (and British) should also be defended.  This too, for them, is a top priority.  The statement of the Central Eastern European Green Left Alliance (CEEGLA) is consistent with the political line of the Fourth International, which prioritises opposition to aggressive Russian ‘imperialism’ and supports Western imperialism in this opposition.

The remilitarisation of the West has been accelerated and trumpeted with more and more bellicose rhetoric from Germany and Eastern European states on the need to face a coming Russian invasion.  Ukraine of course has been making this claim for two years, arguing that the best place to stop it is in Ukraine; in other words, the Western powers should directly join with Ukraine in the war. However, since Western powers are unprepared for this, including that they have not prepared their own populations, they have taken the route of proffering weapons to the Ukrainian state so that its workers can do the fighting and dying in the meantime.

Now the British state has upped this rhetoric by the head of its (supposedly non-political) Army calling for a “citizen army”, which implies the introduction of conscription, although this is denied, for what that’s worth.

In one way this is preparation for a replacement narrative to the one sold up to now that Ukraine must be supported because Western support is helping defeat the Russians, who are often portrayed as being as brutally incompetent as they are simply brutal.  Now that it is becoming clearer that the West does not have the means to ensure a Ukrainian victory and Russia is winning the war, previous escalation of the power of the weapons supplied cannot continue without such escalation increasing the risk of a qualitative change in its character, which again the West is not prepared for.

The call for a “citizen army” raises lots of issues, including the not irrelevant point that Britain including the bit of Ireland it controls, does not actually have citizens – it has subjects. It is also relevant that some parts of the UK will not provide many volunteers, one thinks of the North of Ireland and Scotland in particular; and while these two might find some more than willing, many in England and Wales might also not be so keen.

For the left supporters of the idea that Russian imperialism is a real threat, which must be opposed as a priority – even alongside and on behalf of capitalist states, it raises the question of how the British military is to be supported in the case of Ukraine but not otherwise.  (I assume that the pro-Ukraine left has not followed its own logic and gone so far down the road as to support the defence of its own capitalist state, although I have little doubt it would, should a war with Russia eventuate).

This left can maintain this inconsistent view because it refuses to consider everything from the position of the interests of the working class, the class as a whole.  Instead, it has a routine of political positions based on reforming capitalism through its state by way of a range of political formulations that hang together while appearing to hang apart, unacknowledged as reciprocal.  This includes self-determination for independent capitalist states; state removal of oppression of social groupings through laws against discrimination; capitalist state ownership of the means of production; capitalist state provision of welfare services, and capitalist state enlargement through appropriation of greater resources through increased taxation.  Bizarrely, it thinks that this is a road to smashing this state.

The most important failure then is not to see the capitalist world as a whole and recognise the consequences, So, for example, it supports Western imperialist intervention in Ukraine but not in Palestine.  It genuflects to the imperialist interest and objective in intervening in Ukraine but gives it no role in determining the nature of the war.  In fact it goes further and refuses the idea that this is a proxy war and would have us believe that Western imperialism is supporting an anti-imperialist war of national liberation.

When we simply add up the increasing military intervention of the West in Ukraine; Middle East, including Yemen; in economic sanctioning and forecast of war with China; mobilisation of the Russian armed forces and growth of its military-industrial complex; the growth of Chinese military power; and the increased fracturing and realignment of state alliances with the relative decline of US imperialism, what we have is a drift to war across the world.  In other words – World War III. The inevitability of war as a result of capitalist competition has in the past been well understood.

It must be obvious, to even the meanest intellect of those on the Left in the Western countries, that opposing the steps to this war by their own capitalist state cannot be done by claiming that in some parts of the world these states are defending the interests of the working class; against other capitalist states that are workers’ primary enemy.  By doing so you have already surrendered the foundations of any argument a socialist might have.

The calls for a citizen army by the General is part of the British state’s preparation of the working class for war on its behalf, so how does the pro-war left prepare the working class to resist the entreaties and demands of the state by validating its role in Ukraine?

Behind the war in Ukraine lies Russia, China, Iran and North Korea on one side and the United States/Europe etc. on the other, with other states negotiating a place between them.  A similar split arises in the war by Israel against the Palestinians and threats against Iran and some Arab countries.  War over Taiwan would involve China and the US with Europe dragooned into supporting the US and Russia having good reason to support China.  In other words these wars are conflicts between the same forces and their eruption signals their coming together.  The forces creating them are not for disappearing so hoping that they will dissipate and simply go away are forlorn.

As regards the proposal of a citizens’ army, Boffy has succinctly put forward the socialist view of such a proposal.  It is incompatible with the notion that workers should willingly join the armies of the capitalist state and defend its sovereignty, either with nominally separate workers battalions utterly subordinated to the Army command, or as individuals.  In the latter case, it would be the duty of socialists to still carry forward their arguments, in so far as individuals can, and not to put a shine on the patriotic lies of the capitalist state.

So, once again, the socialist alternative stands in opposition to those defending Ukraine in the war, as the Interview with a Ukrainian and a Russian ‘socialist’ previously mentioned, shows.

When the head of the British Army makes a political speech with such a far-reaching proposal, which assumes an approaching war, the proper reaction is not one of either complacency or dismissive of the inconsequential.  It is a political intervention of some purpose and socialists must explain what this purpose is and why it must be opposed.

Supporting the UK-Ukraine Security Co-operation Agreement

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Stefan Rousseau/Pool via REUTERS

The Ukrainian and British Governments have just signed a security agreement that is supposed to be the first of many to follow with other Western countries.  What attitude should the supporters of Ukraine take to this agreement?  Should they support it?  After all, it promises an increase in military commitment from £2.3bn in 2021 and 2022 to £2.5bn in 2024, and the pro-Ukrainian left supports the provision of arms to Ukraine because it knows that without it the country would already have lost the war.

The main objective of the Agreement is ‘to ensure Ukrainian Armed Forces and security forces are able to fully restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders,’ which is precisely the objective of the Ukraine supporting left.

Of course, the agreement is also ‘committed to implementing the full set of policy requirements as set out in the IMF programme’, with Ukraine being able to ‘attract private finance, boost investor confidence, tackle corruption and create a fair and level playing field for all parties, including through a reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs).’  This is all to be ‘underpinned by a strong private sector-led economy. The UK will seek to build a modern, resilient and sustainable Ukrainian economy that is integrated into global markets, is not susceptible to hostile Russian influence . . . ‘

This is obviously an imperialist charter but the intervention of the Western powers is usually dismissed as ‘of course’ the West is intervening ‘in its own interests’, which is taken to effectively bat away the problem, although how it does so outside the world of the pro-Ukraine left remains a mystery.  Would not NATO membership, as supported in the Agreement, swiftly follow ‘victory’?  Not to mention widespread privatisation and exploitation?  This is after all, what we mean by the West intervening ‘in its own interests’. In what way then is this a victory for the working class, unless the continued integrity of the Ukrainian state is paramount to this Left as it is to the Ukrainian ruling capitalist class and Western backers?

This left is keen that Ukraine is not saddled with onerous debt and the Agreement has an answer to this – ‘the Participants reaffirm that the Russian Federation must pay for the long-term reconstruction of Ukraine’, so that’s sorted?  Well, the idea that Western countries such as the US and Britain will pay to restore Ukraine and scrub its debt, when the debt of these countries themselves has exploded, is another mysterious eventuality of the pro-Ukraine left.

Since military victory against the Russian invasion is the absolute priority, it is hard to see how this Left, including its British component, cannot support this Agreement.  Since they advocate that everything else must wait until this success there can be no reason for it not to be welcomed.  Besides, stating support for some of it and not for others is a bit like saying that I want the chocolate from the chocolate cake but not the sugar, butter, eggs and flour – good luck with that!

In fact, opposing it because of the clear imperialist intentions of Britain within the Agreement implies that Ukraine also cannot be supported because these intentions are agreed and shared.  Unfortunately, prioritising support to Ukraine then means endorsing British imperialism, its partner in agreeing all the measures promised.  In fact the Agreement declares that Ukraine will defend the British state should it be attacked! And why not? (section 5.7) By supporting the capitalist Ukrainian state which in turn supports the British imperialist state, by one remove, so does this British Left. 

The Agreement caused some apprehension because it said that ‘in the event of future Russian armed attack against Ukraine, at the request of either of the Participants, the Participants will consult within 24 hours to determine measures needed to counter or deter the aggression.  The UK undertakes that, in those circumstances . . .  it would: provide Ukraine with swift and sustained security assistance, modern military equipment across all domains as necessary. . .’

It was thought that this might mean any new incursion by Russia into Ukraine, such as around Kharkiv or from Belarus, would cause direct British troop involvement, but this seems not to be the case.  This would entail war between Britain and Russia. The British would need the US on-side and the US to believe that NATO would not fracture in such a situation with some European states perhaps considering that it was not in their interests to suffer the costs of fighting for Ukraine.

The Agreement also implies the threat to confiscate the estimated $300bn in assets of Russia currently frozen in the West, mainly in Europe; the latest wheeze that could save Western countries from an expense it is more and more unwilling to bear.  The Russians have called this piracy, and it is difficult not to accept this description.

The pro-war Left might point to Western hypocrisy, especially its current support to Israel, but again, in the circumstances of absolute (that is unqualified) support to Ukraine, pointing to hypocrisy would be the height of their opposition.  They could, I guess, say that two wrongs do not make a right and that therefore Russian ‘imperialism’ should be made to pay.  What they can’t do is damn all the capitalist pirates and villains in the conflict because that again would include the West and its Ukrainian proxy.

Ukraine might not actually see much, if any, of this $300bn as much of it would go to the US (primarily) and other Western arms manufacturers to pay for past, current and future arms purchases.  What isn’t military hardware would go to Western contractors in Ukraine, with no doubt something for the local oligarchs and some reduction of the burgeoning Ukrainian state debt.

The Agreement’s objective to ‘fully restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders’ is a recipe for slaughter and bloodshed on a massive scale.  The summer 2023 Ukrainian offensive led to the massacre of tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, and they didn’t even reach the first of three defensive lines.  The offensive was called off because of the losses.  To think that a new offensive can succeed is to support the press-gang of hundreds of thousands Ukrainian workers, men and women, many of whom have either fled the country, hope to escape, or hide in their homes out of fear of being apprehended on the streets by the recruiting commissars of the Ukrainian army. Even with this conscripted-against-their-will army Ukraine cannot succeed.

An interview with two supporters of this objective, who believe it can be achieved – one from Ukraine and one from Russia – declare that ‘we have to end the Russian invasion as a priority.  They state that ‘the government’s stance is clear about fighting for the sovereignty of Ukraine’, and that the war ‘is, first and foremost, a people’s war for national liberation’.  ‘The key priorities of the state should be based on the protection of people’s interests, fostering social cohesion, and promoting global solidarity against oppression.’

They repeat the maxim that ‘the Ukrainians have the right to defend themselves; they are the main victims in this conflict. This label of ‘proxy war’ doesn’t give any agency to the Ukrainians themselves.’  Yet it is acknowledged that, for the working class ‘there are not really other viable options in terms of separate fighting militias and units at the moment.’

The objectives and conduct of the war are thus in the hands of the Ukrainian state, in so far as it is not in the hands of its Western sponsors.  Thus, the ‘agency’ we are to bow down to is that of this state, including its conscription of workers to be flung onto the front in meat-grinder assaults. The agency of Ukrainian workers does not stretch to having their own militias, never mind determining the objectives of the war and how it is to be conducted.

This is not considered a problem because ‘the sovereignty of Ukraine’, that is, the sovereignty of the Ukrainian capitalist state is what must be defended for these ‘socialists’; not that of the working class.  They believe that the Ukrainian capitalist state can be made to base itself ‘on the protection of people’s interests, fostering social cohesion, and promoting global solidarity against oppression.’ What capitalist state has ever displayed these features?

The Agreement is further evidence that the Ukrainian state is basing itself on Western imperialism and that such lofty and fanciful views are preposterous and unbelievable, including its aspiration to ‘a hundred-year partnership.’

The Ukrainian interviewed believes that ‘some on the left . . . put an ideological lens on the war that obscures rather than clarifies, but actually obscures the situation for real people on the ground.’  Except hundreds of thousands of dead are not just ‘on the ground’ but underneath it, while tens of thousands more are disfigured and disabled above it.  The coerced conscription of the unwilling, who are not prepared to die for their state, is forcing many to hide while hundreds of thousands of refugees will not go home. It is the supporters of Ukraine who give no evidence of appreciating the bloody consequences of the war while displaying total innocence of any understanding of its capitalist character.

The interviewee, Vasylyna, asserts that the war ‘is, first and foremost, a people’s war for national liberation’, while she admits the workers cannot even organise themselves in their own defence: since when did British imperialism ever support ‘a people’s war for national liberation’?

Oppressor and Oppressed (10) – separating nations or uniting workers?

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1920: M.N. Roy (centre, with black tie) with Vladimir Lenin (left) and Maxim Gorky (behind Lenin). An émigré communist party emerged in October 1920 in Soviet Tashkent under Roy’s guidance.

All the arguments employed against Lenin are claims on behalf of a national solution to national oppression.  The USC article asserts that Lenin believed that ‘the separation of an oppressed people and its creation of an independent state divided the proletariats of various nations, while a bourgeois multinational state with a ruling nation in command united them.’  But this makes no sense.

If Lenin believed that bourgeois empires united workers, why did he oppose great Russian chauvinism, or even place such importance on the right to self-determination if the former did not divide workers and the latter was required in order to unite them?  The article goes on to say that ‘state boundaries do not hinder the international drawing together of the workers of various nations. On the contrary, boundaries signify a respect for equal rights, and a real drawing together is only possible among equals.’

The world has by and large witnessed the end of multinational empires but where is the equality of nations?  How does the imposition of different laws, rules and regulations of labour; the creation of separate national labour organisations; the creation of separate economic, social and political circumstances in general – giving rise to different struggles – lead to drawing workers together?  Is not the point of the creation of such nations, from the nationalist point of view, that the different classes of the nation are ‘naturally’ to be separate from other nationalities and united within – workers with capitalists etc?

Since when was it possible for unequal nation states to achieve equality, and when did larger states stop imposing their interests on smaller ones, through political interference, economic coercion and war?  Is Ukraine not dramatic proof of all of these, by the West as well as Russia?  The author appears to recognise this when he writes that ‘modern American capitalism, which is not weighed down by feudal traditions, does not require the incorporation of other peoples into its state borders in order to dominate them.’  As we know, this hasn’t prevented repeated direct military invasion and occupation by it.  

The socialist demand for the equality of nations means only the right to independence and not belief in the possibility of real equality between vastly different states.   Their drawing together does indeed require the right to separation but rejection of the exercise of such a right can evidence that that this has already happened, to a greater or lesser extent.  Ultimately only the removal of the capitalist imperative to accumulate capital can remove the dynamic of antagonism between capitalist states.

In the Draft Theses on National and Colonial Questions for the Second Congress Of The Communist International, Lenin wrote that the 1914-18 war and the imperialists’ actions after it ‘are hastening the collapse of the petty-bourgeois nationalist illusions that nations can live together in peace and equality under capitalism.’

It is claimed in the USC article that the demise of the Tsarist multinational state after the First World War demonstrated the progressiveness of purely national formations, but the Second World War rather exposed the very restricted limits to this.  Cold War conflict muted direct war in Europe after World War 2, but even the success of the European Union in muting conflict between the major powers within Europe has not made all states within it equal.  The collapse of multinational Yugoslavia was not a progressive event, entailing war, ethnic cleansing and lasting bitterness and conflict.  Again, the war in Ukraine demonstrates that nation state independence is no obstacle to the intrusion of the more powerful.

The author opposes what Marx, and subsequently Lenin, considered as progressive tasks: ‘it was unfitting for a workers’ social-democratic party to support even the “progressive” tasks of capitalism on the eve of the First World War, because these tasks were accomplished with steel and blood.’   As Marx said, capitalism had never ‘effected a progress without dragging individuals and people through blood and dirt, through misery and degradation’, but that through its ‘development of the productive powers of man . . .  bourgeois industry and commerce create these material conditions of a new world . . .’  K Marx, The Future results of British rule in India, Collected Works Vol 12 p 221 and 222)

The author argues that Lenin’s concept of imperialism meant that ‘capitalism was decaying and that the only way out was through a socialist revolution and the disintegration of multinational and colonial empires. . . In this second period Lenin linked the resolution of the national question in Russia to the victory of the proletarian revolution’ and ‘considered that the peoples of Russia could unite again only in a union of republics with equal rights.’

In the Draft Theses on National and Colonial Questions Lenin wrote at its beginning that ‘In conformity with its fundamental task of combating bourgeois democracy and exposing its falseness and hypocrisy, the Communist Party, as the avowed champion of the proletarian struggle to overthrow the bourgeois yoke, must base its policy, in the national question too, not on abstract and formal principles but, first, on a precise appraisal of the specific historical situation and, primarily, of economic conditions.’

In this document he noted that ‘from these fundamental premises it follows that the Communist International’s entire policy on the national and the colonial questions should rest primarily on a closer union of the proletarians and the working masses of all nations and countries for a joint revolutionary struggle to overthrow the landowners and the bourgeoisie. This union alone will guarantee victory over capitalism, without which the abolition of national oppression and inequality is impossible.’

In 1916, after writing his brochure on imperialism, he wrote against a political opponent – in A Caricature of Marxism – that ‘every sensible worker will “think”: here we have P. Kievsky telling us workers to shout “get out of the colonies”. In other words, we Great-Russian workers must demand from our government that it get out of Mongolia, Turkestan, Persia; English workers must demand that the English Government get out of Egypt, India, Persia, etc.’

‘But does this mean that we proletarians wish to separate ourselves from the Egyptian workers and fellahs, from the Mongolian, Turkestan or Indian workers and peasants? Does it mean that we advise the labouring masses of the colonies to “separate” from the class-conscious European proletariat? Nothing of the kind. Now, as always, we stand and shall continue to stand for the closest association and merging of the class-conscious workers of the advanced countries with the workers, peasants and slaves of all the oppressed countries. We have always advised and shall continue to advise all the oppressed classes in all the oppressed countries, the colonies included, not to separate from us, but to form the closest possible ties and merge with us.’

‘We demand from our governments that they quit the colonies, or, to put it in precise political terms rather than in agitational outcries—that they grant the colonies full freedom of secession, the genuine right to self-determination, and we ourselves are sure to implement this right, and grant this freedom as soon as we capture power. We demand this from existing governments, and will do this when we are the government, not in order to “recommend” secession, but, on the contrary, in order to facilitate and accelerate the democratic association and merging of nations. We shall exert every effort to foster association and merger with the Mongolians, Persians, Indians, Egyptians.’

In June 1920 ‘a precise appraisal of the specific historical situation’ meant that ‘world political developments are of necessity concentrated on a single focus—the struggle of the world bourgeoisie against the Soviet Russian Republic, around which are inevitably grouped, on the one hand, the Soviet movements of the advanced workers in all countries, and, on the other, all the national liberation movements in the colonies and among the oppressed nationalities, who are learning from bitter experience that their only salvation lies in the Soviet system’s victory over world imperialism.’

‘Consequently, one cannot at present confine oneself to a bare recognition or proclamation of the need for closer union between the working people of the various nations; a policy must be pursued that will achieve the closest alliance, with Soviet Russia, of all the national and colonial liberation movements. The form of this alliance should be determined by the degree of development of the communist movement in the proletariat of each country, or of the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement of the workers and peasants in backward countries or among backward nationalities.’

‘Federation is a transitional form to the complete unity of the working people of different nations. The feasibility of federation has already been demonstrated in practice both by the relations between the R.S.F.S.R. and other Soviet Republics . .  . In this respect, it is the task of the Communist International to further develop and also to study and test by experience these new federations, which are arising on the basis of the Soviet system and the Soviet movement. In recognising that federation is a transitional form to complete unity, it is necessary to strive for ever closer federal unity . . . ; second, that a close economic alliance between the Soviet republics is necessary, otherwise the productive forces which have been ruined by imperialism cannot be restored and the well-being of the working people cannot be ensured; third, that there is a tendency towards the creation of a single world economy, regulated by the proletariat of all nations as an integral whole and according to a common plan. This tendency has already revealed itself quite clearly under capitalism and is bound to be further developed and consummated under socialism.’

He finishes the draft theses with the statement, that ‘complete victory over capitalism cannot be won unless the proletariat and, following it, the mass of working people in all countries and nations throughout the world voluntarily strive for alliance and unity.’  From all this it is clear that Lenin never departed from the view that the purpose of socialists, including in its national policy, was to create the maximum unity of the working class in its struggle for socialism. 

The Ukraine Solidarity Campaign has published an article that usurps the purpose of the demand for national self-determination as argued by Lenin, from one of strengthening the unity of the working class across and between countries to one of supporting the creation of new capitalist states in order to create an (impossible) equality of states; one that somehow leads to working class unity.  Internationalism as the unity of the working class regardless of nation has become the equality of nations, the solidarity of nationalisms with the retention of separate states and, by implication, the rights arrogated by them based on claims for the necessity of their existence.

The purpose is clear: to justify the war in Ukraine and the claims of the capitalist Ukrainian state on the subterfuge that these encompass the interests of its workers, which ‘Lenin’s contradictions’ have supposedly helped prevent from being appreciated.  It has the merit of recognising that Lenin cannot be summoned in support of Ukraine in the war, thereby undermining the arguments of others who think he can.

Series concluded

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Oppressor and Oppressed (9) – Lenin’s contradictions

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The article published by the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign (USC) tells us that:


‘In another place Lenin stated that “large states can accomplish the task of economic progress and the tasks of proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie more successfully than can small ones.” But Lenin also wrote the following: “In 1905 Norway separated from Sweden… What does this mean? Did the people lose? Did the interests of culture lose? Or the interest of democracy? Or the interests of the working class from such a separation? Not at all!… The unity and closeness of the Swedish and Norwegian peoples in fact gained from the separation.” This contradiction in Lenin (the progressive nature of multinational states and the progressive nature of the dissolution of multinational states).’

Lenin, however, says no more here than when larger states separate it is better that they do so without conflict, if unity does not have the necessary support, in order that the primary unity sought – that of the working classes of the various nations – is less impaired. Whether Lenin got this right in this particular case is secondary to the general argument.


The article goes on to say that ‘Most of Lenin’s statements, nevertheless, were in support of preserving the integrity of the Russian Empire, in 1903 he considered its disintegration “an empty phrase as long as its economic development continued to bind its various parts more closely into one political whole.” The break-up of Russia, according to Lenin, would be a step backwards, “in contrast to our aim of overthrowing autocracy,” In 1913 Lenin wrote:

“Autonomy is our plan for the organization of a democratic state. Separation is not our plan at all… On the whole we are opposed to separation. But we support the right to separation.”
This, indeed, was Lenin’s position. Both from the necessary, and much to be desired, purposes of development of the productive forces and the unity of the workers’ movement within the Tsarist Empire, the Bolsheviks were opposed to disintegration. As the article goes on to say, “The aim of socialism is not only to destroy the division of humanity into small states and all national aloofness, not only the rapprochement of nations, but also their merging,”


The author of the USC article criticises the idea of multinational states: ‘History has not yet provided us with the example of nations in one state enjoying complete equality, because a state is not only class coercion, but also national coercion. The stronger nation in a multinational state always wishes to be the ruling one.’[1]


Other lessons from history are, however, ignored; such as nation states often being the creation of nationalism, upon which national antagonisms have facilitated wars based on capitalist competition. Nation states often contain national minorities and attempts to create single-nation states often result in odious oppression of national minorities. Nationalism is not the answer to the disease of national oppression that it itself engenders.


It might therefore also be said that History has not yet provided us with the example of nation states enjoying complete equality, because a state is not only an instrument of class coercion, but also of national coercion of one against another. Instruments of class oppression will not be equal when there is competition between them to increase the resources that they can exploit.
The article appears to agree with this but seems to see it as relevant only within multinational states, in which it says that ‘as long as the state — violence — exists, equal rights for nations will be impossible, no matter how democratic the state might be.’


The USC article quotes from a ‘Ukrainian Marxist’ in 1916 ‘disagreeing with Lenin’s statement that a democratic Russian republic would make the realisation of the national right of separation a possibility’:


‘It is ridiculous to speak of the possibility of the ruler of a capitalist state “safeguarding rights of nations to self-determination,” Every state, even the most democratic, and especially today in the age of imperialism, would not only never agree to the separation of oppressed peoples but would always aspire towards new territorial gains, to a further oppression of nations. Capitalist governments have always looked upon the “rights of nations to self-determination” as treason to the fatherland and have punished the guilty with the death penalty… A blind faith in the democratic and socialist advantages of Russia…is in no way an expression —as is often thought — of the Great Russian socialism. On the contrary…the national program of Russian revolutionary social democrats is nothing other than the repetition of Great-Russian liberal patriotic programs.’


This argument contains some measure of truth – that capitalist governments cannot be relied upon not to oppress smaller national groups within their Empire, and is even true against Lenin who believed at this time that only a bourgeois democratic and not a working class revolution was possible. It ignores, however, that national minorities within nation states separated from Empires will also often be oppressed.


In terms of the class nature of the revolution that Lenin at that time believed would occur, he foresaw the working class taking the lead in this bourgeois democratic revolution, ensuring its thoroughly democratic character. Above all, as we have seen from the earlier post, the purpose of the demand for self-determination of nations by Lenin was the unity of the working class; not a presumed higher unity among different classes within a separating nation, with such unity always being that of the working class united with its ruling classes in its subordination. It is precisely this ‘solution’ to national oppression that the USC article attempts to assert.


It is claimed that the greater number of Lenin’s contradictions come from the period of the First World War and Russian 1917 revolutions, attacking what it sees as the cultural implications of Lenin’s policy:


‘Lenin wrote, on the one hand, that it was impermissible to force the Russian language upon the peoples of Russia: “you cannot drive people to heaven with an oak-wood club.” But, on the other hand, he wrote that in Ukraine in the Donbas region ‘the assimilation of the Great Russian and Ukrainian proletariat is an incontestable fact, and this fact is undoubtedly a progressive thing,” even though Tsarist assimilation was precisely the “oak-wood club” that Lenin condemned. For the Tsarist regime forbade the Ukrainian proletariat its own schools and compelled the Ukrainians to learn only in Russian. In another place Lenin wrote that he was for assimilation as long as it was not forced. But where in history does one see an uncompelled, voluntary assimilation?!’


Let’s start at the end – it is exactly the objective of socialist revolution to remove all oppression. That the chronicle of oppression, including national oppression, continues to exist is not at all surprising, given the heretofore failure of socialism. It is also possible, and what matters most, is that what is meant by assimilation is that the political unity of the different national proletariats is not prevented by national cultural, ethnic or racial differences.


‘Assimilation’ does not in itself entail oppression of cultural differences, including in language, but it is not the role of socialism to push against voluntary cultural assimilation, rather to allow those who wish to retain or develop cultural distinctions not to be forced by the state to disavow their cultural practices or to suffer discrimination against them. The example of the Donbas region quoted by Lenin is instructive: Ukrainian independence and Ukrainian nationalism have now, very obviously, failed to unite the different proletariats of the region and only Ukrainian nationalists can claim that ‘decolonisation’, that is the suppression of the Russian language and culture, is now the solution.

[1] We will leave aside such cases as the United States (are these states separate nationalities?) or the UK, where claims for the oppression of Scotland are false, with this country playing an equal, even outsized role, in creation of an Empire. There are other cases such a Belgium and Switzerland where the existence of two and several nationalities within one state has been the case.

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Forward to part 10

Oppressor and Oppressed (8) – where Lenin went wrong?

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Lenin, in the National question in our programme (July 1903), stated that :

‘The Social-Democrats will always combat every attempt to influence national self-determination from without by violence or by any injustice. However, our unreserved recognition of the struggle for freedom of self-determination does not in any way commit us to supporting every demand for national self-determination. As the party of the proletariat, the Social-Democratic Party considers it to be its positive and principal task to further the self-determination of the proletariat in each nationality rather than that of peoples or nations. We must always and unreservedly work for the very closest unity of the proletariat of all nationalities, and it is only in isolated and exceptional cases that we can advance and actively support demands conducive to the establishment of a new class state or to the substitution of a looser federal unity, etc., for the complete political unity of a state.’

Further, in his Theses on the National Question in June 1913, ten years later, he wrote that:

‘The Social-Democratic Party’s recognition of the right of all nationalities to self-determination most certainly does not mean that Social-Democrats reject an independent appraisal of the advisability of the state secession of any nation in each separate case. Social-Democracy should, on the contrary, give its independent appraisal, taking into consideration the conditions of capitalist development and the oppression of the proletarians of various nations by the united bourgeoisie of all nationalities, as well as the general tasks of democracy, first of all and most of all the interests of the proletarian class struggle for socialism.’

‘Social-Democracy, therefore, must give most emphatic warning to the proletariat and other working people of all nationalities against direct deception by the nationalistic slogans of “their own” bourgeoisie, who with their saccharine or fiery speeches about “our native land” try to divide the proletariat and divert its attention from their bourgeois intrigues while they enter into an economic and political alliance with the bourgeoisie of other nations and with the tsarist monarchy.’

In Critical Remarks on the national question at the end of 1913 Lenin wrote that:

‘The principle of nationality is historically inevitable in bourgeois society and, taking this society into due account, the Marxist fully recognises the historical legitimacy of national movements. But to prevent this recognition from becoming an apologia of nationalism, it must be strictly limited to what is progressive in such movements, in order that this recognition may not lead to bourgeois ideology obscuring proletarian consciousness.’

In 1916, in The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up, he wrote that:

‘The several demands of democracy, including self-determination, are not an absolute, but only a small part of the general-democratic (now: general-socialist) world movement. In individual concrete casts, the part may contradict the whole; if so, it must be rejected. It is possible that the republican movement in one country may be merely an instrument of the clerical or financial-monarchist intrigues of other countries; if so, we must not support this particular, concrete movement, but it would be ridiculous to delete the demand for a republic from the programme of international Social-Democracy on these grounds.’

He goes on to say that no ‘democratic demand can fail to give rise to abuses, unless the specific is subordinated to the general; we are not obliged to support either “any” struggle for independence or “any” republican or anti-clerical movement.’

Supporters of the Ukrainian state in its war against the Russian state and in its alliance with Western imperialism have often held up the words of Lenin on self-determination of nations to justify their support.  In doing so they empty the policy of its purpose, its relevance to the circumstances, its required programmatic context, and break from all the conditions necessary to it that are contained in the various quotations above.

Having taken this historic red flag of out of the cupboard they have made it ready by washing all the colour out of it so that now the flag they wave is white.

An article dug up from the past and published by the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign has done everyone a favour and decided that Lenin’s ‘contradictions’ should be led bare.

The article does two things.  It firstly points out the failures of Bolshevik policy in the smaller and less developed countries of the Tsarist Empire, with a failure to live up to their declared aims.  In this regard, there is nothing exceptional to the less developed counties that did not also apply to the heartlands of the revolution in St Petersburg and Moscow; the underdevelopment of the grounds for socialism in these countries was just more pronounced than in Russia itself.  The contradictions in Bolshevik words and actions created by material circumstances were therefore real.

This, however, is subsidiary to the real purpose of the article, which is not to damn Lenin’s policy for its failure due largely to these circumstances, but to damn the policy itself.

This is divided into three periods with different emphases.  So: ‘in the first period Lenin clearly supported the idea of the progressive nature of multinational large-scale states. He considered that such states were more suitable for the workers’ movement and lead to the fusion of nations, which Lenin considered to be the ideal of socialism.’

‘In 1913 he wrote: The wide-ranging and rapid development of productive forces under capitalism demands territories unified and enclosed by large states, in which the bourgeois class alone will be able, together with its antipode, the proletarian class, to concentrate, destroying all the old, medieval, sexual, narrowly local, religious and other obstacles… As long as and insofar as various nations comprise one state, Marxists will in no case propagate either a federalist principle or decentralization. A centralized large state is a great historical step forward from medieval divisions towards a future of socialist unity of the whole world; and other than through such a state (indissolubly tied to capitalism) there is not and cannot be any path to socialism.’

This development carried forward by capitalism continues today, for example, in the creation of the European Union.  The attempts to reverse it are reactionary and have been demonstrated to be so, even to many of its supporters – we need only think of Brexit.  The failure of nation states to accommodate the international development of capitalism led to two world wars and today the development of the world capitalist system – characterised by rivalry between large states – threatens a third.  Neither the contradictions of the current system nor their solution by socialism will be resolved by attempting to go back to purely national development, which never in any case fully existed.  Today, smaller nations become proxies for the largest powers, such as Ukraine is for the US, and their nationalism becomes window dressing for the ‘intrigues . . . and political alliance(s) with the bourgeoisie of other nations’, as Lenin described.

In other words, the analysis of Lenin is valid today.

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Oppressor and Oppressed (7) – solving national oppression

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in The Programme for Peace Trotsky states that:

‘The “deliverance” of Ukraine does not at all constitute the fundamental aim of the Allied governments. Both in the further progress of the war and after its conclusion, Ukraine will become but a pawn in the great game of the capitalist giants. Failing the intervention of the third power, Revolution, Ukraine may as a result of the war either remain in Western bondage, or fall under the yoke of Russia, or be divided between the powerful robbers of the two coalitions.’

Of course, Trotsky spoke of Belgium and not Ukraine, and of it being divided between Germany and Britain and not the West and Russia, but these are the only differences.  If some ‘socialists’ pretend that the victory of the US and NATO, or of Russia, will not witness the subjugation of the Ukrainian working class to the impositions of one or the other, or more likely both, they no longer understand how the world works.

Plans are already being advanced to sell off what is useful to the Western powers who have forked out so much money and weapons to ensure the Russians are defeated; the Russian main interest is that no sort of Ukraine is ever strong enough to be an effective ally of Western imperialism.  Of course, supporters of Russia see no harm in this but their concern for the working class is so subliminal they do not stop to consider the consequences of this for the Ukrainian working class. Heads they win and tails you lose, unless you stop playing the imperialist game.

As Trotsky put it ‘The independence of the Belgians, Serbians, Poles, Armenians and others is regarded by us not as part of the Allied war program . . .  but belongs to the program of the fight of the international proletariat against imperialism.’

The supporters of the capitalist state of Ukraine defend its reliance on Western imperialist weapons so their claims to stand for any sort of Ukrainian independence are something of a joke; while the supporters of Russia defend the destitution of that part of Ukraine not to be annexed on the grounds of the primacy of the security of the Russian capitalist state.  Their claim that the Russian intervention is some sort of protection of (part of) the Ukrainian population is also a joke, akin to the claims of many Western ‘humanitarian’ interventions of recent history.

In both cases the outcome of either policy is light years away from socialism or any move towards it.  Trotsky put forward three possible outcomes of war:

‘Theoretically, three typical possibilities may here be considered: (1) a decisive victory of one of the parties; (2) a general exhaustion of the opponents without decisive sway of one over the other; (3) the intervention of the revolutionary proletariat, which interrupts the “normal” development of military events.’

To work towards the last, to whatever extent possible, is the task of socialists.  At the very least they must understand that this is the alternative they must strive for:

‘As regards the third possible issue of the war, it seems to be the clearest. It presupposes that while the war is still on, the international proletariat rises with a force sufficient to paralyze and finally to stop the war from below. Obviously, in this most favourable case, the proletariat, having been powerful enough to stop the war, would not be likely to limit itself to that purely conservative program which goes no further than the renunciation of annexations.’

We have already seen that for Lenin the correct view on annexation is that it ‘is violation of the self-determination of a nation, it is the establishment of state frontiers contrary to the will of the population.’ (Lenin, The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up) while the correct approach is the ‘freedom to settle the question of secession by means of a referendum of the nation that desires to secede’ (The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination)

Trotsky notes that the French “socialists” had approached the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine from Germany by reducing ‘the consultation of the population of Alsace-Lorraine to a shameful comedy: first occupying (that is, acquisition by force of arms) and then asking the population’s consent to be annexed. It is quite clear that a real consultation presupposes a state of revolution whereby the population can give their reply without being threatened by a revolver, be it German or French.’

He goes on: ‘The only acceptable content of the slogan “without annexations” is a protest against new violent acquisitions, which only amounts to the negation of the rights of nations to self-determination. But we have seen that this democratically unquestionable “right” is being and will necessarily be transformed into the right of strong nations to make acquisitions and impose oppression, whereas for the weak nations it will mean an impotent wish or a “scrap of paper.” Such will be the case as long as the political map of Europe forces nations and their fractions within the framework of states separated by tariff barriers and continually impinging upon one another in their imperialist fights.’

‘It is possible to overcome this regime only by means of a proletarian revolution. Thus, the centre of gravity lies in the union of the peace program of the proletariat with that of the social revolution.’

‘We saw above that socialism, in the solution of concrete questions in the field of national state groups, can make no step without the principle of national self-determination, which latter in its last instance appears as the recognition of the right of every national group to decide its national fate, hence as the right of peoples to sever themselves from a given state (as for instance from Russia or Austria). The only democratic way of getting to know the “will” of a nation is the referendum. This democratic obligatory reply will, however, in the manner described, remain purely formal. It does not enlighten us with regard to the real possibilities, ways and means of national self-determination under the present conditions of capitalist economy; and yet the crux of the matter lies in this.’

‘For many, if not for the majority of the oppressed nations, national groups and factions, the meaning of self-determination is the cancellation of the existing borders and the dismemberment of present states. In particular, this democratic principle leads to the deliverance of the colonies. Yet the whole policy of imperialism aims at the extension of state borders regardless of the national principle . . .’

‘ . . . the national-separatist movement very often finds support in the imperialist intrigue of the neighbouring state. This support, however, becomes decisive only in the application of war might. As soon as there is an armed conflict between two imperialist organisations, the new state boundaries will not be decided on the ground of the national principle, but on the basis of the relative military forces.’

‘. . . even if by a miracle Europe were divided by force of arms into fixed national states and small states, the national question would not thereby be in the least decided and, the very next day after the righteous national redistributions, capitalist expansion would resume its work. Conflicts would arise, wars and new acquisitions, in complete violation of the national principle in all cases where its preservation cannot be maintained by a sufficient number of bayonets. It would all give the impression of gamblers being forced to divide the gold justly among themselves in the middle of the game, in order to start the same game all over again with double rage.’

‘The right of national self-determination cannot be excluded from the proletarian peace program; neither can it claim absolute importance. On the contrary, it is, in our view, limited by deep, progressive, criss-crossing tendencies of historical development. If this “right” is by means of revolutionary power, set over against the imperialist methods of centralisation which place weak and backward peoples under the yoke and crush national culture, then on the other hand the proletariat cannot allow the “national principle” to get in the way of the inevitable and deeply progressive tendencies of the present industrial order towards a planned organisation throughout our continent, and further, all over the globe.’

The war in Ukraine is not the product of either the revolutionary power of the working class against narrow nationalist claims, or the international development of ‘the present industrial order towards a planned organisation throughout our continent’, and Ukraine is being destroyed not built up. Both the West and Russia are developing their industry for the purposes of increasing the means of destruction in a capitalist rivalry over how their respective developments are to weigh against each other in the current and future wars.  Were a war of ‘progressive tendencies of the present industrial order towards a planned organisation throughout our continent’ to occur it would not entail the incorporation of Ukraine into the European Union but would have the aim of also including Russia.

To contemplate this would involve two further considerations involving the breaking away of Europe from subordination to the United States, and the misgivings of China that a new European capitalist power might seek to exercise its power against it.

Liberals appear to labour under the illusion that, despite the whole history of nation states being one of revision of borders, the settlement since World War II is inviolable; except of course when it suits their purposes, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union, break-up of Yugoslavia and expansion of Israel.  The example of Ukraine demonstrates that there is no final and settled solution to the national question, or to the wars asserting national rights, within capitalism, which turn each claim to national rights into a claim for exploitation.

This does not, of course, absolve us from attempting to address each question concretely in its particularities to advance democratic measures in so far as we can, but it does indicate where the ultimate resolution lies.

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Oppressor and Oppressed (6) – the enemy of my enemy is also mine

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In a previous post I noted that the Russian invasion of Ukraine with a relatively small army meant that it did not, and could not, hope to annex the whole country and that its limited claims of annexation in the east of the country demonstrated the intention not to annex the whole country.  And all this is true as far as it goes.

Russia, however, has expanded its mobilisation, increased its military budget, and made clear that its war aims include denazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine in order that it can no longer pose a threat to Russian security or be an accomplice of NATO in threatening it.  So, while its strategy and objective is not primarily one of territorial gains, its key objective is the attrition of the Ukrainian armed forces.  It has these aims because it would, as I have also said before, be no great victory for Russia if the Ukrainian state were to lose only the regions that could be controlled by a pro-Russian population while it remained free in the greater part of the country to rebuild its army and join NATO.

Leftist supporters of Russia think its war aims are justified, thereby making their idea of the interests of the working class synonymous in this case with the interests of the Russian State, just as leftist supporters of Ukraine do the same.  In the case of the latter, they ignore that this means supporting the project of US imperialism to weaken Russia as a step towards the encircling of China.  In other words, they claim to oppose the war by supporting the advance towards an even greater one.

By claiming that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrates that it is an aggressive imperialist power intent on taking over Ukraine it justifies that country’s armed defence by the US and NATO and gives carte blanche to acceptance of the same claims by other capitalist states in the Baltics and Poland etc.  In doing so the rest of the NATO alliance is thereby validated.  You can’t support imperialism just a little bit, only here and not there. You can’t tell the workers of Eastern Europe, In Poland or Baltics etc. that their enemy is their own ruling class and that they should oppose the aggressive NATO alliance if you have just rejected those claims next door in Ukraine.

But supporters of the Russian state must also accept the logic of their position.  In order to achieve the war aims that they have bought into they must accept the means necessary to achieve them, just as supporters of Ukraine have supported NATO intervention as an inevitable consequence of their defending that state.  The removal of any potential threat to the security of the Russian state from Ukraine means the crippling of that country and an effective Russian veto on its political leadership.  Genuine socialists will not fret over the weaknesses of any particular capitalist state, since we seek their overthrow and replacement by the rule of the workers through their own state, but the subordination of one capitalist state by another requires oppression that socialists do not support.

In the case of Ukraine it is necessary for Russian war aims that it lack the industrial capacity to create its own arms industry of the required size, and that it lack the human resources to effectively fight.  The attacks on industrial infrastructure and the massive decline in population is evidence of growing Russian achievement of these objectives.   The population of the country fell from 41.2 million in 2021 to 34.7 million in 2023.  In 1999 52.3m people lived in Ukraine; the dramatic fall in population has therefore not been mainly the result of the war but of the disastrous effects of the introduction of capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union.  Once again, the main enemy of working people is proved to be its own ruling class, which now sends them into war or exile in pursuit of war aims that are to the benefit of Western imperialism.  The future looks even bleaker.  This does not however absolve the Russian state of its responsibility for the invasion and its consequences.

If it is alright to inflict this oppression on Ukrainian workers, then leftist supporters of Russia cannot claim to defend the interest of the working class in any general and universal sense, since Ukrainian workers are no less a part of the world working class than any other.  If the interests of the Russian state can permit this because of some primary objective of defeat of US hegemony, why would this not equally permit suppression of the Russian working class, as is currently the case?  And if this war is only part of a larger picture of preventing the US ultimately dominating China, why isn’t the Chinese capitalist state permitted to bolster itself by suppressing the Chinese working class as well?  Between them the so called socialist supporters of Ukraine and Russia can effectively justify the suppression of the working class of the whole world.

By supporting Ukraine in its maximalist demands, and US support for them, the pro-Ukraine Left has effectively signed off on the extension of Russian war aims to the more or less ruination of the country, as the only effective way to neutralise it when it has become a proxy for the US and NATO. They may believe that Ukraine is determining the nature of the war but by it being utterly dependent on Western imperialist support it is the objectives of this imperialism, and its capacities to deliver on them, that determines its nature and its outcome, and also the political character of this left’s support for it.

So what are the implications for those opposing the war and presenting negotiations as the means towards peace?  If the US seeks war in Ukraine it is not on behalf of Ukraine but itself, and if Russia seeks subordination of Ukraine to its security interests, what concern does either have for its people?  These are the competing interests that will frame any negotiations because these are why the war started, will ultimately determine its result and thereby the outcome of any negotiations.

In any event, Ukraine as a state and its people will be the plaything of greater powers.  Russia can have no interest in a ‘Minsk 3’ deal that leaves its war aims unachieved while Ukraine has also rejected a ‘Minsk 3’.   Russian proposals to the US before the war were not consistent with US policy of its substantial and definitive defeat and if implemented would have signalled acceptance of Russian regional influence.

To argue for negotiations that could only be concluded by these parties is to argue for some temporary pause in their mutual antagonism, which would have to involve removal of the antagonism itself to be any way permanent, which in turn would mean the end of great power rivalry and competition among the largest and strongest capitalist powers.  In other words the removal of capitalism itself.

The role of socialists is explain all this and to warn against the designs of both parties, including the Ukrainian state that has made itself a willing proxy of Western imperialism, before and after commencement of the war.  What you don’t do is pick one oppressor rather than another that therefore necessarily requires an oppressed.

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Oppressor and Oppressed (5) – How do socialists oppose War?

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The answer to the question how to oppose war seems simple – to fight for peace.  In the article ‘Socialism and War’ Lenin set out the view of socialists, at that time in relation to the First World War, but applicable to the attitude to war in general:

‘Socialists have always condemned war between nations as barbarous and brutal. But our attitude towards war is fundamentally different from that of the bourgeois pacifists (supporters and advocates of peace) and of the Anarchists. We differ from the former in that we understand the inevitable connection between wars and the class struggle within the country; we understand that war cannot be abolished unless classes are abolished and Socialism is created; and we also differ in that we fully regard civil wars, i.e., wars waged by the oppressed class against the oppressing class, slaves against slave-owners, serfs against land-owners, and wage-workers against the bourgeoisie, as legitimate, progressive and necessary.’

When wars break out, those concerned with the oppressed are often impatient at the argument that war is inevitable under capitalism and that the fundamental task is to overthrow it and start the building of a socialist society.  More immediate tasks always seem more pressing and demand attention with the argument that all those on the side of the oppressed must unite to stop the worst of immediate suffering.

The task, of course, is not to ignore these immediate tasks, but unless they go hand in hand with creating a movement and party that will lead to the overthrow of capitalism such campaigns will have little role to play in preventing greater and more barbarous oppression in the future.  Good intentions count for naught in politics. Those who have been involved in politics longer will have seen multiple wars and will know that to simply oppose war with peace is treating symptoms but not the disease.

The current weakness of the socialist movement partially explains the pursuit of substitutes for it, which for some is ‘Ukraine’, for others Russia, and for others an unwillingness to consider such political considerations at all, with immersion in activity devoid of long-term perspectives: waiting for the next war so to demand peace.  Without stopping to think how can war be stopped before it starts – what is it that creates war after war.

Trotsky in The Programme for Peace dealt with this question in the midst of the First World War:

‘What is a peace program? From the viewpoint of the ruling classes or of the parties subservient to them, it is the totality of the demands, the ultimate realisation of which must be ensured by the power of militarism. Hence, for the realisation of Miliukov’s “peace program” Constantinople must be conquered by force of arms. Vandervelde’s “peace program” requires the expulsion of the Germans from Belgium as an antecedent condition. Bethmann-Holweg’s plans were founded on the geographical warmap. From this standpoint the peace clauses reflect but the advantages achieved by force of arms. In other words, the peace program is the war program.’ So, today, the peace programme of Ukraine and its supporters, and the peace programme of Russia and it supporters, is the war programme of the Ukrainian and Russian capitalist states, which some socialists have decided to endorse. For the former peace will come only from expulsion of Russia from all of Ukraine while for the latter peace will only be assured by a Ukraine too weak to join with NATO in threatening Russia and its legitimate security.

Consider too, for example, the peace programme of my local anti-war movement, which put out the following leaflet, which states that ‘The Belfast Anti War Group has opposed the war in the Ukraine and has called for a ceasefire and negotiations.’  But who and what will determine the outcome of the negotiations and what relationship will the outcome of the negotiations have for ‘the oppressed’; never mind the interests of ending war for good through socialism?

The answers are obvious – the stronger in the war will define the peace and the peace will be the victory of one capitalist power over the other; it will not care for the oppressed and far from bringing forward the end of war will simply create the grounds and starting point for the next.  It will not advance the interests of the working class and socialism.

This is what the call for the ending of war by negotiations means.

Trotsky’s following words could have been written for today, with reference to Ukraine instead of Belgium:

‘For the revolutionary proletariat, the peace program does not mean the demands which national militarism must fulfill, but those demands which the international proletariat intends to enforce by dint of its revolutionary fight against militarism in all countries. The more the international revolutionary movement expands, the less will the peace questions depend on the purely military position of the antagonists.’

‘This is rendered most clear to us by the question of the fate of small nations and weak states.’

‘The war began with a devastating invasion of Belgium and Luxemburg by the German armies. In the echo created by the violation of the small country, beside the false and egotistic anger of the ruling classes of the enemy, there reverberated also the genuine indignation of the common masses whose sympathy was attracted by the fate of a small people, crushed only because they happened to lie between two warring giants.’

‘At that first stage of the war the fate of Belgium attracted attention and sympathy, owing to its extraordinarily tragic nature. But thirty-four months of warfare have proved that the Belgian episode constituted only the first step towards the solution of the fundamental problem of the imperialist war, namely, the suppression of the weak by the strong.’

The analogy with Ukraine like all analogies is imperfect – Ukraine is not a small country and has large armed forces – but near enough to warrant close comparison.  Above all, such a comparison illustrates the definitive nature of the war as the ‘World competition of the capitalist forces, [which] means the systematic subjection of the small, medium-sized and backward nations by the great and the greatest capitalist powers.’

‘The war destroys the last shreds of the “independence” of small states, quite apart from the military outcome of the conflict between the two basic enemy camps.’

The mistake of those supporting Ukraine is that they think it irrelevant that Ukraine provoked the war by advancing membership of the major imperialist alliance – preparing for its own attack – and that this imperialist alliance had helped put in place in Ukraine a government that would pursue this course so that it might weaken its major competitors – Russia and China.  

The supporters of Russia make the mistake that this justifies the Russian invasion, which has nothing to do with defending democracy or its own people but is simply to protect its own capitalist interests – what else, after all, are capitalist states for?  Or do they, like the supporters of the Ukrainian state, believe that their chosen champion is unique such that it defends the interest of its working class? When these ‘socialists’ justify support for these interests, including the integrity of the Russian state, they simply admit their complete abdication from the socialist cause. The mistakes of either are the mistakes of both.  From the point of view of socialism, they land in the same place, simply waving different flags.

‘Only charlatans or hopeless simpletons can believe that the freedom of the small nations can be secured by the victory of one side or the other’, wrote Trotsky.

The supporters of one or other of the warring capitalist states are oblivious to a fact that should be blindingly obvious to Marxists, that they are supporting a capitalist state and in doing so surrender any claim to be Marxists. I have read supporters of Ukraine claim it is a democracy while Russia is an autocracy, while supporters of Russia have claimed it is an autocracy but Ukraine is fascist.  The fundamental problem is not that both are wrong but that even if one were correct, it could not justify support for either capitalist state.

Trotsky put it this way:

‘Social-patriotism which is in principle, if not always in fact, the execution of social-reformism to the utmost extent and its adaptation to the imperialist epoch, proposes to us in the present world catastrophe to direct the policy of the proletariat along the lines of the “lesser evil” by joining one of the two warring groups.’ 

‘We reject this method. We say that the war, prepared by antecedent evolution, has on the whole placed point-blank the fundamental problems of the present capitalist development as a whole; furthermore, that the line of direction to be followed by the international proletariat and its national detachments must not be determined by secondary political and national features nor by problematical advantages of militaristic preponderance of one side over the other (whereby these problematical advantages must be paid for in advance with absolute renunciation of the independent policy of the proletariat), but by the fundamental antagonism existing between the international proletariat and the capitalist regime as a whole.’

Lenin opposed the war and refused support to ‘democratic’ imperialism even when he saw Tsarism as especially reactionary, and refused support to Russia even when, after the February 1917 revolution, it was ‘the freest country on earth’, with dual power between the workers and peasant’s soviets and the capitalist Provisional Government.  Meanwhile the German social democrats supported the German state on the grounds that Tsarism was a special reactionary force compared to its own.

Today’s supporters of capitalist states only prove that, just like there is no fool like an old fool, there are no mistakes like the old mistakes.

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Oppressor and Oppressed (4) – Against Annexations

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Russia invaded Ukraine with an army much smaller than that of Ukraine and could not hope to annex the country with this force, even when combined with pro-Russian Ukrainian forces in the separated Eastern states.  It would have been stupid to attempt it, and although the Western media has been keen to present the Russians as stupid, and Putin as crazy, their conduct of the war demonstrates otherwise.

Russia has already proclaimed parts of Ukraine as now part of Russia but this in itself demonstrates the intention not to annex the whole country.  Those parts that it claims have populations that reflect the previous deep division in the country, and many within them will support incorporation into Russia.  Many will not and many of these will have fled to areas under control of Kyiv or to Western countries while many others have gone to Russia.

Some supporters of the Ukrainian state on the left started by endorsing the maximalist and unachievable objective of recovery of the Donbas and Crimea from Russian rule.  In this they were promising a forever war and far from defending Ukrainians from any oppression were in reality promoting its continuation. Some have moved away from this maximalist position in acceptance of its impossibility but done so at the cost of greater incoherence.  They now want only gains from the February 2022 invasion to be overturned, which still involves war but also must involve acceptance of what they consider oppression.

This oppression derives, it is claimed, from denial of Ukraine’s right to self-determination and only the free exercise of this right can put an end to this national oppression.  I have done this argument to death in many posts but will briefly recap.

Ukraine was already independent when it chose to ally with Western imperialism against Russia.  From that point it surrendered its freedom of manoeuvre, and its state committed its people to suffer the consequences of advancing NATO membership, which threatened Russia.  If a capitalist state employs its independence to condemn its people to war and invasion it is not its lack of independence that is the problem but the use to which it has been put.  

The regime in Kyiv pursued policies that irretrievably split its own people and undermined the basis of a united Ukraine.  Its nationalist project could not satisfy the ultra-nationalists predominantly in the West of the country while making their demands acceptable to many of the Russian speaking Ukrainians in the East.  The invasion has only radicalised Ukrainian nationalism and make it even less capable of peacefully encompassing both.

Criminally, some socialists in Ukraine and their supporters in the West have decided that some Ukrainians matter more than others and have supported the idea that what is needed is some sort of process of decolonisation from everything Russian.  Unfortunately, such a process will create as much oppression as it purports to relieve.  Ukrainian nationalism is not the solution to the oppression of the Ukrainian people.

The last thing to do then is defend the Ukrainian state but to point out its role in creating the oppressive conditions that stoked division in its people, and now is attempting to impose as the natural order a state oppressive of its pro-Russian minority.

So, if not all of Ukraine is going to be annexed to Russia and the country was already divided, does this exhaust the question?

Is the issue that parts of Ukraine have been annexed by force; is this is the problem and some other means would be valid and legitimate?

Lenin quotes a previous resolution of the socialist movement that ‘a protest against annexations is nothing but recognition of the right to Self-determination”. The concept of annexation usually includes: (1) the concept of force (joining by means of force); (2) the concept of oppression by another nation (the joining of “alien” regions, etc.), and, sometimes (3) the concept of violation of the status quo. We pointed this out in the theses and this did not meet with any criticism.’

On the question of force he goes on to say that ‘Can Social-Democrats be against the use of force in general, it may be asked? Obviously not. This means that we are against annexations not because they constitute force, but for some other reason. Nor can the Social-Democrats be for the status quo. However you may twist and turn, annexation is violation of the self-determination of a nation, it is the establishment of state frontiers contrary to the will of the population.’ (Lenin, The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up)

Lenin states in another article that ‘The right of nations to self-determination means only the right to independence in a political sense, the right to free, political secession from the oppressing nation. Concretely, this political, democratic demand implies complete freedom to carry on agitation in favour of secession, and freedom to settle the question of secession by means of a referendum of the nation that desires to secede’ (The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination)

The Russian state has held referenda in annexed regions, to the derision of the West, but the West has talked and acted as if Ukraine consists of only those who support the Kyiv regime.  This regime rejected the Minsk agreements that promised autonomy for Russian controlled regions within Ukrainian sovereignty, which followed only after its initial ‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’ to reclaim full control was stopped by Russian and pro-Russian forces.  Since the Zelensky regime has run out of democratic legitimacy by banning opposition parties, censoring the media and cancelling Presidential elections, the various warring parties have no valid claim to be fighting for democracy even of the minimal bourgeois variety.

Ukraine can only occupy Crimea by force and Russia has already incorporated regions of Ukraine by force.  Russia, however, has annexed much of the East of the country, and the question of self-determination, as repeatedly argued by Lenin, is about such annexation.  

This is not to make a fetish of the current internationally ‘recognised’ boundaries of Ukraine, which are drawn from the administrative boundaries of the Soviet Union, but again this simply poses the question and does not answer it. So, we will have to pursue this question.

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Oppressor and Oppressed (3) – Ukraine and Oppression

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On the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine my first words were that ‘the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces should be opposed by all socialists.  It will deliver death and destruction and strengthen division between the workers of each country . . . ‘

The subsequent war has certainly led to many deaths and massive destruction and the division between the workers of each country has certainly deepened. I have written around 60 articles on the war from the view that the working class and socialists should support neither Ukraine nor Russia but should oppose both by taking an independent position against the war.

If you read no more than the first few sentences of the original article you may be prompted to ask yourself the question – why, if you opposed the Russian invasion, do you not support Ukraine whose people are oppressed because of it?

Within this question are two issues: are the Ukrainian people oppressed by the war and why do you not support Ukraine? 

It might be thought that I have surreptitiously changed the question from one of the Russian invasion to one of the war.  Over the many sixty posts I have explained that who fired the first shot does not determine the nature of the war and since Marxists are not pacifists it may come to pass that the working class will ‘fire the first shot’ in a war against capitalism.

I have explained that the war was provoked, contrary to the many claims otherwise, by Western imperialism using Ukraine as the willing proxy for its war against Russia. Ukraine had already built up a very large army with the help of NATO, had committed itself to joining it, and had also committed itself to reoccupy regions already taken by Russia that could reasonably be thought to oppose such Ukrainian occupation.  In other words, war was inevitable given the objectives and policies of both states.  Being inevitable does not mean we oppose it less but rather oppose it more strongly for it is thereby not an accident or mistake but derives the character of the warring states.

It might be argued that it matters that Russia occupies parts of Ukraine and by virtue of this imposes oppression on its population, so that this should determine support for Ukraine.  In searching for the correct approach, we might refer to Lenin on national oppression, where we will read the following, written in 1916:

‘  . . . hardly anybody would risk denying that annexed Belgium, Serbia, Galicia and Armenia would call their “revolt” against those who annexed them “defence of the fatherland” and would do so in all justice. It looks as if the Polish comrades are against this type of revolt on the grounds that there is also a bourgeoisie in these annexed countries which also oppresses foreign peoples or, more exactly, could oppress them, since the question is one of the “right to oppress”. Consequently, the given war or revolt is not assessed on the strength of its real social content (the struggle of an oppressed nation for its liberation from the oppressor nation) but the possible exercise of the “right to oppress” by a bourgeoisie which is at present itself oppressed. If Belgium, let us say, is annexed by Germany in 1917, and in 1918 revolts to secure her liberation, the Polish comrades will be against her revolt on the grounds that the Belgian bourgeoisie possess “the right to oppress foreign peoples”!’

‘There is nothing Marxist or even revolutionary in this argument. If we do not want to betray socialism we must support every revolt against our chief enemy, the bourgeoisie of the big states, provided it is not the revolt of a reactionary class. By refusing to support the revolt of annexed regions we become, objectively, annexationists. It is precisely in the “era of imperialism”, which is the era of nascent social revolution, that the proletariat will today give especially vigorous support to any revolt of the annexed regions so that tomorrow, or simultaneously, it may attack the bourgeoisie of the “great” power that is weakened by the revolt.’ (Lenin, The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up)

When Lenin was writing these lines during World War I Belgium was an imperialist power with an appalling record of brutal oppression in the Congo, yet Lenin opposed its annexation.  Ukraine is not an imperialist power but it has contributed to imperialist adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan and has pursued membership of the major imperialist military alliance.  It is not some colonial victim.

If it is claimed that this example of Belgium warrants support for Ukraine today then we need to understand exactly what Lenin was saying and take relevant factors into account, including that already mentioned – that Ukraine was making ready to escalate the existing low-level war.

Lenin referred to the annexation of Belgium, not to its defeat.  In fact, at that time, Lenin was in favour of the defeat of all the imperialist powers.  He also refers to the need to ‘support every revolt against our chief enemy, the bourgeoisie of the big states, provided it is not the revolt of a reactionary class.’ The alliance of Ukraine is with precisely the largest of imperialist ‘big states’ – the United States – so supporting Ukraine would hardly be consistent with his analysis.

The Ukrainian war is a ‘revolt of a reactionary class’, which we cannot support; we cannot support war by this class carried out by its state that is precisely the instrument everywhere of subordinating and repressing the working class and oppressed.  This state and the Governments that sat upon it promised its people peace and delivered it into war.

It is utterly stupid, however, to then do what some self-proclaimed Marxists have done, which is to support Russia fighting ‘our chief enemy, the bourgeoisie of the big states.’  This ignores that Russia has its own bourgeoisie and is a big state itself, and involved in an alliance with another even bigger big capitalist state called China.  Some of these socialists think it progressive if US hegemony is weakened or overturned by the growing power of this alternative capitalist alliance, forgetting that if this happened this alliance would then be ‘our chief enemy’ that they would have supported climbing into the saddle of world imperialism.

So, was Lenin wrong to say that ‘If we do not want to betray socialism we must support every revolt against our chief enemy, the bourgeoisie of the big states, provided it is not the revolt of a reactionary class’?  Not at all, for we have to remember that the world he was referring to was made up of a small number of imperialist powers and a large number of colonies, and that even though these colonies were fighting for independence and not for socialism their struggle against the imperialist powers was justified and to be supported.  He was decidedly not in favour of supporting one capitalist alliance against another and damned every self-proclaimed socialist who did so.  Just as today we should damn as betrayers of socialism those that would support Ukraine and its imperialist backers or, alternatively, Russia. 

It is therefore necessary to do what Lenin and Trotsky always advised, to treat reality as it is, concretely, and not schematically or to some pre-determined purpose alien to real conditions.  So, it is not irrelevant that far from support for Ukraine being an example, as Lenin put it, of ‘support [for] every revolt against our chief enemy, the bourgeoisie of the big states’; support for Ukraine would place us on the same side, in support of, ‘the bourgeoisie of the big states’, including the US and its NATO allies.

The Ukrainian state and Armed Forces are utterly reliant on Western imperialism for money and weapons and could not continue the war without them.  When we are called upon to support ‘Ukraine’ we should remember that ‘Ukraine’ is a capitalist state and definitely not to be identified with its people, which it has driven into war against their interests and on its behalf.  It wages war for its own reasons and like every other capitalist state, these involve the subordination and exploitation of its working class who today are drafted into a war in which they are being slaughtered.  To a very great extent this state has become a proxy and extension of US imperialism and NATO.  This cannot credibly be denied even by those supporters of ‘Ukraine’ (i.e. the Ukrainian state), who must therefore rest this support on some moral claim that, because it cannot rest upon reality or any understanding of the class forces involved, is worse than useless.

The fundamental cause of the war and of the Russian invasion was, and is, the extension of the military alliance of ‘the bourgeoisie of the big states’ into Ukraine in its attempts to subordinate Russia.  As we must repeat, this does not mandate support for Russia, but the character of the war is determined by this capitalist competition.  We can no more support Russia because of some possible oppression by the United States than Lenin could support annexation of Belgium because of some future possible imperialist oppression by it.  Our opposition to an existing capitalist war cannot be based on the possible future baleful consequences of defeat for one of the warring states.  So, what of Ukrainian oppression?

Some on the left have claimed there are two wars going on, one of which is a proxy war between the US and NATO against Russia, and one of Ukrainian national liberation.  I have dealt with this argument before so will not repeat it now.  There is only one war and support for Ukraine by socialists will not change the outcome should it win with the support of the US and NATO – they will determine the character of any ‘victory’.

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