Tag Archives: imperialism

Another brutal lesson on imperialism

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The attack on Venezuela and Trump’s declaration that the US is going to run the country is about as naked a demonstration of imperialism as one can get.  It is also a crystal clear expression of the new ‘multipolar’ world order that many on the far right and on the left have supported.  You think not?  Do you think the ‘multipolar’ world will not have a pole that includes United States imperialism?

The dust has hardly settled before speculation on future attacks on Cuba and Iran.  Apparently the one on Venezuela was held back because Trump wanted to bomb Nigeria first. Under the cover of the latest events the Brits and French bombed Syria while the war in Ukraine drags on amid European forecasts of war with Russia in a few years.

The nauseating assent by the leaders of European imperialism was displayed by agreed statements that so reeked of hypocrisy that they would have been better to say nothing.  We support international law but it’s great that Maduro was ousted and can we now please have peaceful regime change! What will they do if Trump decides he would like Greenland?

The plea for peace is not without self-interest.  The European leaders know that their own legitimacy is undermined by naked US aggression, and at a time when for many people their support for genocide in Palestine already damns them.  It further isolates them not only from their own populations but also from the rest of the world and places a question mark over how they can find a way out of it while preventing total subordination to the United States.

The attack on Venezuela is also an attack on Chinese and Russian interests as both are heavily invested in the current regime, both politically and economically, with Trump making it plain in his own vulgar way that it’s about oil.  Control of the world’s greatest reserves would weaken the power of Russian ownership, the supply to China, and permit lower risk in attacking Iran.  So, no one thinks the attack on Venezuela is simply about Venezuela.

Yet that is how much of the left behaves.  As I wrote in a post nearly a week ago, ‘it seems to think European imperialism is the alternative to US imperialism, which used to be the alternative to Russian imperialism.’  This is illustrated in its solidarity with the Ukrainian state, which is supported by European imperialism, to take the place (or rather to complement) that of the US. Ukraine proclaims its support for European imperialism in return, and seeks to lock it and the US into a formal alliance far into the future.  This left thinks it can support Ukraine in its alliance with European imperialism while it also seeks the continuation of US support, and at the same time defend Venezuela by opposing the same US imperialism and the European assent for its aggression!

It thinks it can pick and choose what imperialism to support in each conflict; now defending the intervention of European imperialism in Ukraine while damning its hypocrisy over Venezuela; damning US imperialism today while supporting its intervention in Ukraine a year ago and seeking it to continue, while still absolving it of any responsibility for the war starting in the first place.  It is wilfully blind to the accumulation of conflicts and wars, of which Ukraine is just one, that discloses a World conflict and presages a World War that will involve every imperialist power.

The myopia is admitted when they state that the war in Ukraine will only become an inter-imperialist one once Western troops are directly fighting on the ground.  Do they not know that this is already happening? In which case, how many will there have to be for them to recognise it?

Imperialism is not a feature derived from individual states, governments or regimes but of the imperatives of the international accumulation of capital and the irreconcilable competition it involves. It is this that destroys the illusions that ‘multipolarity’ is a step forward; as if the development of new and stronger imperialist powers is good because it weakens the older ones.  The left suffers a derangement of ‘anti-imperialism’, which prescribes an arbitrary checklist to allow the surrender of working class political independence to support for one or other imperialist pole.

And just as this ‘anti-imperialism’ allows one to un-recognise one or other imperialism, so does it prevent one from recognising what isn’t, and therefore what is, socialism.  It’s a long time since many declared illusions in Venezuelan or Chavez ‘socialism’ and the current Maduro regime lacks legitimacy, although it now exceeds anything that Trump could attempt to put in place.

There is no insuperable obstacle to the existing regime being made to accommodate US interests but the demand to allow the US to ‘run’ the country is certainly one of them.  It is not possible to achieve this, and Trump’s limited action may betray some dim awareness of it, while his dismissal of the main opposition leader reveals the weakness of any of his plans.  The Venezuelan regime may or may not seek to cut a deal although Trump may stupidly seek more than he can get if recent history is any guide.

We have been told that US policy is pivoting away from Asia and towards its own hemisphere but even this involves global geopolitical consequences, as we have seen, and does so because imperialist competition encompasses the globe.  Whoever fails to see this has not learned the first thing from two world wars.  In any case, it is very doubtful that the new US national security strategy means any such thing.

The absence of the working class from the global class struggle has allowed many on the left to pick one imperialist camp against another, with further delusions that they are fighting campism!  The failure to establish the political basis on which the working class should take a stand means that we have leftists in my own country opposing Irish NATO membership, and the presence of British rule in the north of the country, while supporting the Ukrainian state, which currently declares the absolute necessity for a NATO-like agreement and for the presence of British and French troops on the ground as part of its ‘solution’.

The attack on Venezuela is widely accepted by the left as an exercise by imperialism that will have a worldwide impact but much of it currently displays no coherent understanding of the reason for these consequences, never mind a consistent policy to oppose it.

Standing Firm with Western Imperialism

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There comes a point in political argument in which the least effective argument is the most appropriate – that you quote the opponent’s own words as admissions.  However, given it’s their own words they are unlikely to revoke them. We have long since past this point in dealing with the supporters of Ukraine and its alliance with Western imperialism.  It’s doubtful that even while calling for it they will admit its existence.

The existence of a proxy imperialist war might also seem obvious given the hundreds of billions of dollars given to Ukraine in the shape of weapons and financing, with unprecedented sanctions, not to mention intelligence support and special forces on the ground, and much else besides.  Yet this too is denied, despite the repeated declarations of both Western leaders and Ukraine that they are fighting for each other – what do they know?

Instead, it is declared that this unprecedented level of support to Ukraine is less than ‘the full international assistance they deserve’, despite the stocks of western arms running embarrassingly low and exposing its military weakness.  It speaks of a ‘Trump-Putin axis’, but is Trump selling weapons to Russia or Ukraine and is he imposing sanctions on Ukraine or Russia?  Who does the US provide military intelligence to?  Does it allow its satellites to spy on Ukrainian positions for the Russians, or on Russian positions for the Ukrainians?

The Ukraine Solidarity Campaign denounces what it calls ‘neo-colonial plunder’ by this axis.  But who supported the intervention of western imperialism in the first place?  Who said this was a good idea? Who said it knew that western imperialist intervention was for its ‘own interests’.  What on earth did it think these interests were?  And still it calls for its yet greater intervention!

Now it seems to think European imperialism is the alternative to US imperialism, which used to be the alternative to Russian imperialism.  Unfortunately, it believes that European imperialism has fallen for ‘Trump’s deception’ and ‘delayed autonomous European action that could effectively help Ukraine . . .’  But if Starmer, Macron and Merz are not the answer, who is?  Who’s more anti-Russian than this lot?

What about the Ukrainians themselves?  We have been told repeatedly to respect their ‘agency’, except it is Trump that is now blamed for the ‘neo-colonial plunder disguised as sovereignty [that] entrenches Russian occupation, excludes the occupied from governance, and blocks any possibility of reversing Russia’s conquests.’  Not much room for Ukrainian agency there it would seem.

And this is not the only example of the supporters of Ukraine overlooking Ukrainian agency (consciously or unconsciously).  The hundreds of thousands of deserters, who don’t want to die, are routinely ignored, as are the hundreds of thousands of young men avoiding forced conscription by emigrating, or by running away, or fighting with army recruitment teams that try to snatch them off the street.

What do they think of the Ukrainian agency of those who fight with the Russians?  Or about the millions (variously estimated) who have moved to Russia?  Do they really believe everyone in the Russian occupied areas of the Donbas and Crimea are loyal citizens of Ukraine who wish to return to the tender embraces of the regime in Kyiv?

And what of other Ukrainian agency expressed in the growing role of ethno-nationalism, with its suppression of the Russian language and Russia-aligned Orthodox church?  Or the rampant corruption that they, along with the western media, purposely downplay?  Are these too not expressions of ‘Ukrainian agency’?  Or does the sanctity of Ukraine not involve this messy reality of the real world?

The pro-war left is incapable of integrating all this into its simple story of support for the fight against Russian aggression because its cause is that of the Ukrainian state itself, and it is precisely the Ukrainian state that deserters do not want to die for.  It is the state that many emigrants want to leave behind and many young men dread being beaten up by and sent to the front to become meat for first person drones.  It is the Ukrainian state that is rotten with corruption; that seeks to suppress the rights of Russian speakers and adherents of the church.  It is the Ukrainian armed forces that is full of neo-Nazi units to whom the Jewish President presents medals, absolved by the pro-war left in the West because he’s Jewish and these things can’t actually be happening.

Yet Ukrainian agency miraculously returns when it comes to the possibility that Ukraine can win the war – ‘we reject Trump and Putin’s lie of inevitable Ukrainian defeat or imminent frontline collapse. The difficulties Ukraine faces are manufactured by the failure of others to provide necessary aid.’  Presumably yet more arms must be sent to Ukraine even while the state finds it more and more difficult to find Ukrainians to use them and much of the aid goes missing.  Why doesn’t the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign not support Starmer’s and Macron’s plans to get British and French troops into the country? Or is that too obviously imperialist?

The left distinguishes itself not by its proclaiming an independent working class position but by trumpeting the cause of the Ukrainian state louder than anyone else.  In doing so it abandons everything it thought it stood for.  It makes clear its objective of defending the ‘sovereignty’ of the Ukrainian state, forgetting that sovereignty of the capitalist state is what must be opposed and that this principle of ‘national sovereignty’ brings it full circle back to the pro-Russian left that also proclaims national sovereignty as its first concern.

Ukraine is an independent capitalist state: not a colony and not an oppressed nation.  If there is a national question it is the Russian-aligned population that the Ukrainian state has considered a problem of terrorism since 2014.  And if there is a national question the war has demonstrated that no variety of nationalism is the solution – Ukrainian or Russian.

‘Self-determination’ for Ukraine, championed by the pro-Ukraine left, is simply the demand that the decisions of the regime in Kyiv be enacted – the ‘sovereignty’ of the state to be respected. The restoration of ‘freedom of choice’ can only mean defence of the Kyiv regime’s policy of joining NATO and rebuilding its armed forces to 800,000, bigger than it currently has and impossible for the bankrupt country to afford..

This has nothing to do with socialism and directs the Ukrainian working class into the hands of the increasingly corrupt Kyiv regime; a choice more and more Ukrainians are voting against with their feet.  The Western left parrots the demands of the most rabid neocons in Washington and discredited leaders in Europe, pushing an agenda that can only mean fighting to the last Ukrainian.

The pro-war left has created a world in which Western imperialism (now shorn of the United States because Trump is in charge) is fighting ‘against authoritarianism and fascism’ in opposition to Russia and China, which between them is supposedly leading the threat to ‘global democracy’, whatever that is.

Forget about the world being divided into classes.  Forget about class struggle and the fight for socialism.  The war in Ukraine is presented as a struggle for ‘global democracy’ and supporting the Ukrainian state is the litmus test.  Forget that this democracy is a capitalist democracy and that Ukraine is a debased example of it.  Forget that only now, with Trump, is the US its enemy, and forget that presumably Genocide Joe was on the right side of the struggle before him.

Forget that even if all of this was true, the response of socialists would not be to unite with one imperialism against the other but to seek a workers’ united front against both.  Forget the lessons of the Popular fronts of the 1930s; they look progressive compared to a putative alliance with Zelenskyy, Starmer, Macron, von der Leyen and Lindsay Graham etc. 

As the US has demonstrated, imperialism can shift from ‘democratic’ to authoritarian forms quickly and with relative ease, especially when part of its ‘opposition’ claims it can play a progressive role.  The character of the state, and workers’ opposition to it, is not determined fundamentally by its form but by its nature.  Not its governmental style or model ,but by its essential class character. The idea that Starmer, von der Leyen and assorted US neocons are democratic alternatives that the working class must stand beside is to have surrendered all understanding gained by being a socialist.  In the midst of a genocide in Palestine – that all of them have supported – such a view is criminal and unforgivable.

As Trotsky once said: “I can give counsel only to the workers. My counsel to them is not to believe for a single instant that the war of the two imperialist camps can bring anything else but oppression and reaction in both camps. It will be the war of the slave-owners who cover themselves with various masks: “democracy,” “civilization,” on the one hand, “race,” “honour,” on the other. Only the overthrow of all slave-owners can once for all end the war and open an epoch of true civilization.”

Mission creep Ukraine (2 of 2)

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The views of more honest Western commentators, that the Russian invasion has been provoked, have been roundly denounced as the work of Putin apologists who are excusing the invasion.  However, knowing the invasion was provoked neither excuses it nor requires one to support it.  It was open to the left opponents of the invasion to acknowledge this as well, but many of them didn’t. They came out with the same response as the vast majority of bourgeois propagandists and politicians in the West in denouncing any recognition of this reality as an apology for Putin.

In other words, the pro-war left joined in the whitewashing of their own imperialism’s responsibility for the war.  They didn’t have to, but they did.  For many bourgeois writers, simply setting out known facts and accepted realities, and pointing out the role of the West did not invalidate their support for it because for them NATO is a very good thing.

Such an approach was not open to the left supporters of Ukraine because they can’t claim the same innocent character for NATO.  They therefore couldn’t acknowledge the previous close cooperation of Ukraine with Western imperialism, otherwise the alliance now so obvious during the war would be seen as the flowering of an existing collaboration, robbing Ukraine of its cloak of innocent bystander.   The so-called Marxists were thus left hiding the role of their imperialism much more radically than even the more honest of its bourgeois supporters!

The most that would be admitted was that western imperialism was supporting Ukraine ‘for its own selfish interests’, as if this disposed of the matter; as we have seen, these leftists were claiming that ‘NATO won’t intervene’ and that even though Ukraine had the right to seek help, this was something ‘which it won’t get’.

Others stated that ‘we are without hesitation in favour of the delivery of defensive weapons to the Ukrainian resistance.’  This source further said that ‘we must also oppose the delivery of air fighters to Ukraine that Zelensky has been demanding. Fighters are not strictly defensive weaponry, and their supply to Ukraine would actually risk significantly aggravating Russian bombing.’

Of course, the Bradley’s, Abrams, Leopards, Chieftains, HIMARS, ATACMs, Storm Shadows and F16s etc. have disposed of the ridiculous notion that ‘NATO won’t intervene.’  Has the exposure of their blunder caused them to row back?  Of course not.  Even the supply of F16s that was previously opposed has not signalled the least change, except of course that the supply of increasingly powerful weaponry does represent a change in the real world that the social-imperialist supporters of Ukraine refuse to acknowledge.

By doing so these leftists effectively stake a claim for the same innocent character of NATO intervention that its Western bourgeois allies do, its ‘selfish interests’ notwithstanding.  By virtue of the Ukrainian fight being simply defensive, so therefore (we must assume) is the NATO supply of weapons!  NATO, though it is threatening expansion into Russia’s next door is still presumably a defensive alliance!  All its moves, as that of Ukraine, are simply written off as reflexes to Russian aggression.  As we said in the first post – opposition to imperialism means opposition to Russian imperialism, no more and no less. Russian imperialism has thus performed the amazing feat of rendering Western imperialism non-imperialistic!

The problem for this left is that it left a lot of hostages to fortune; we have already seen the delusion involved in the statements that NATO won’t intervene and won’t supply weapons.  It has supplied so many it has seriously depleted the stocks it says it needs for itself! It now needs massive rearmament to continue its support to Ukraine, which presumably must also be supported by the pro-war left. Once more the ‘selfish interests’ behind this must again presumably be considered entirely secondary, if not irrelevant.

Joe Biden made it very clear before the war that he knew that the invasion would take place but was not the least interested in seeking to stop it: he would not “accept anybody’s red lines.”  Instead, he had “the most comprehensive and meaningful set of initiatives to make it very, very difficult for Mr Putin to go ahead and do what people are worried he’s going to do.” Except, these weren’t measures to stop an invasion but to hammer Russia after it had done so.

The escalation of weaponry supplied since these “initiatives” is both a sign of the intention of Western imperialism to prosecute a proxy war and a sign that it has been losing.  The first leftist quote in the previous post stated that “Ukrainians have the right to take weapons from wherever they can get them in a fight to the death with the invaders.”  The insouciance to the prospect of ‘fighting to the death’ with the help of weapons from imperialism has otherwise been correctly described as ‘fighting to the last Ukrainian’, and lies behind certain imperialist interests demanding conscription of the youngest cohort to the Ukrainian army.  

Such is the policy of Western imperialism (now with the added twist that Trump wants to make money out of it) and also the policy of the social-imperialists.  Having admitted that the supply of Fighter aircraft “would actually risk significantly aggravating Russian bombing”, this has proved to be the case; yet it has given rise to no re-evaluation of support for Western intervention.  Like the imperialists themselves, the resulting retaliation by Russia suffered by the Ukrainian population is completely secondary to the cause they jointly support.

The firing of long range missiles into Russia with the direct participation of western troops has dramatically escalated Western provocation that increasingly incentivises Russia to escalate in return since the price paid may be less than that of acceptance: with the lack of deterrence of further western escalation if it does not.  This logic is not inevitable, the weapons supplied by the West have not been able to gravely hurt Russia, never mind deliver the victory that Ukraine has until recently claimed it could achieve. I don’t know if its Western left supporters are still under this illusion.

Without a mass antiwar movement seeking to prevent it escalation is made more likely, but in any case out of our hands, and less likely the weaker Western imperialism is.  How far we are from such a movement can be seen in the need for articles like this one attempting to stop much of the left from supporting the war, with all its escalation and potential for further in the future.

The first quotation states that ‘NATO won’t intervene because it doesn’t want a new world war.’  The author obviously saw that such an intervention threatens it.  Well, NATO has intervened – big time – and the author and his fellow social-imperialists are still cheerleading it.   Has the threat disappeared or does it not matter anymore? Or does the sacred character of the Ukrainian capitalist state demand that the risk to the future of all of humanity is a risk worth taking?

Perhaps the author has forgotten his statement; although forgetting that one foresaw the potential for a world war when the circumstance that might bring it about have been amplified would show remarkable detachment.  Alternatively the author might not have really believed the statement, in which case there would still exist a degree of detachment.

In any case, the exposure of the claims of the supporters of the Western imperialist alliance in its war against Russia fully confirms its political bankruptcy.  Its predictions have been disproved and its statements of position have been exposed as false.  Running through them is the thread of social-imperialist politics – socialism in words and pro-imperialism in practice.

Back to part 1

Mission Creep Ukraine (1of 2)

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REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

‘NATO won’t intervene because it doesn’t want a new world war. However, the Ukrainians have the right to take weapons from wherever they can get them in a fight to the death with the invaders.  Let them have anti-aircraft weapons instead of petrol bombs. ‘

‘There’s a difference between calling for that and saying that Ukraine shouldn’t ask for/accept such help. Which it won’t get. Meantime the government is handing out guns and calling on people to make Molotov cocktails to throw on invading Russian troops.’ 

The two comments above were made by two supporters of Ukraine over three years ago in a Facebook discussion just after the Russian invasion in 2022.  Besides the puerile notion that one of the largest armies in Europe would be fighting with Molotov cocktails, the idea that NATO would not be involved was even more ridiculous.  The predictions obviously haven’t aged well, but the point is that they were nonsensical even at the time.

The prediction that there would be no NATO involvement could only be made through ignorance (or rather ignoring) that it was already involved.  This facilitates the equally spurious notion that the war was ‘unprovoked’, the staple claim of the western media and political class.  From the US sponsorship of regime change in 2014 (following years of interference) to the training of it army, military exercises and provision of weapons; to the new Ukrainian regime putting the goal of NATO membership into the constitution. All these were steps towards war when Russia had said repeatedly that NATO membership was unacceptable.

In a third Facebook contribution, another supporter of Ukraine said that the right to self-determination meant the right to join NATO if that is what a country wanted.  Given the difficulty of arguing that supporting membership of an imperialist alliance was a ‘right’, and therefore something socialists should support, the majority of left supporters of Ukraine decided that it would ignore the logic of its support for Ukrainian self-determination and pretend membership of NATO was not the issue.

Hence all the previous history of NATO enlargement and repeated Russian objections could be ignored, along with all the other western imperialist involvement just mentioned.  Opposition to imperialism now meant opposition to Russian imperialism, no more and no less.

The problem was that it was very hard to claim that NATO membership was irrelevant.  Even in western media there were enough newspaper columns pointing out the Russian attitude to NATO expansion to make it clear that pushing Ukraine to join NATO, either from the inside or from outside, was ‘crossing the brightest of Russian red lines’, as the US ambassador, and later CIA Director, put it around the time of the 2008 NATO summit.

In this summit NATO declared it wanted Ukraine as a member, which was subsequently enshrined into Ukraine’s constitution in 2019.  Supporters of Ukraine are keen to quote Putin in claims that he does not recognise Ukraine as a separate country but ignore statements that make its membership of NATO central to Russian policy.  Equally, statements by leading western figures have demonstrated the importance of NATO membership; NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated in 2023 that Putin “went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders….” 

The head of the Ukrainian delegation, Davyd Arakhamia, at the peace talks just after the Russian invasion, stated that Ukrainian neutrality was the main Russian condition for a peace deal and that the war could have ended in spring of 2022 if Ukraine had agreed to neutrality:“Russia’s goal was to put pressure on us so that we would accept neutrality.  This was the main thing for them: they were ready to end the war if we accepted neutrality, like Finland once did. And we would give an obligation that we would not join NATO. This is the main thing…”

But the main thing wasn’t done and the war continued as the US and British promised to provide more support to Ukraine, whereupon once again the left supporters of Ukraine denied the role of these imperialist states in perpetuating the war, and continued supporting it themselves.  Zelenskyy has claimed that he was told by Biden and other NATO leaders before the invasion that Ukraine would not be allowed to join NATO but that publicly, “the doors will remain open.”

If this is untrue, then it can be assumed that the public position of future Ukrainian membership was a real possibility.  If it is true, and Biden had no intention of permitting NATO membership, perhaps because of the risk of more or less immediate war with Russia, it means that the invasion was provoked without the perceived threat to Russia being an immediate possibility.

It also means that Biden and others were content for the war to happen, not to ensure NATO membership for Ukraine, but with the objective of pursuing the project of crippling Russia through war and sanctions – turning the ‘Ruble into rubble’ .  It also means Zelenskyy was happy to engage in the war because this is what Ukrainian policy already involved – recovery of Crimea and Russian occupied areas of Donbas. There was no attempt to prevent it by signalling agreement to neutrality. Now, however, it is Ukraine and its economy that is being turned into rubble.

In any case, the war was the result of inter-imperialist rivalry that the supporters of Ukraine have determined is of no consequence to its cause or nature, so that the only issue that matters is self-determination for a country and state that is already independent but whose political leadership colluded with western imperialism to subject its people to war.  In effect, the war ensured that Ukraine became an even greater vassal of Western imperialism, although this has not prevented these self-declared ‘anti-imperialists’ supporting its imperialist alliance.

The striking thing is not only the stupidity of pretending that NATO ‘won’t intervene’ and that Ukraine will seek weapons ‘which it won’t get’ but that the vassalage of Ukraine to Western imperialism was not denied right at the start! Ukraine, it was claimed, ‘wishes its vassalization in the belief that it is the only guarantee of its freedom. We must, of course, also oppose its vassalization, but for the time being, the most urgent need must be addressed . . .’

Vassalage is the position of a person granted the use of land, in return for rendering homage, allegiance, and usually military service or its equivalent to a lord or other superior.  A perfect description of Ukraine – a subordinate instrument of Western imperialism that the left supports while claiming it is fighting an anti-imperialist war!

The duty of socialists is not to support the subordination of a working class to the results of vassalage by imperialism, through its bourgeois class and state, on the spurious grounds that ‘it is the only guarantee of its freedom’. Vassalage is not freedom.  The ‘urgent need’ of the Ukrainian working class before the invasion was to prevent its bourgeois leadership from taking it into war on behalf of western imperialism. The urgent need thereafter has been to bring it to an end; against the efforts of Western imperialism and the Ukrainian state to keep it going.

Forward to part 2

What does “Don’t betray Ukraine?” mean (3 of 3)

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In a Facebook discussion on why socialists should oppose the war I received a reply that stated:

‘In ninety cases out of a hundred the workers actually place a minus sign where the bourgeoisie places a plus sign. In ten cases however they are forced to fix the same sign as the bourgeoisie but with their own seal, in which is expressed their mistrust of the bourgeoisie. The policy of the proletariat is not at all automatically derived from the policy of the bourgeoisie, bearing only the opposite sign – this would make every sectarian a master strategist; no, the revolutionary party must each time orient itself independently in the internal as well as the external situation, arriving at those decisions which correspond best to the interests of the proletariat. This rule applies just as much to the war period as to the period of peace.’

This of course is a quote from Trotsky.  The problem is not to quote this as if this explains left support for the Ukrainian/Western imperialist alliance, but why this combination requires socialists to place a plus sign when the chances are only one in ten of that being correct.

If we look at the examples in the article from which the quote is taken, we see the sort of circumstances in which this would be correct.  These include when a ‘rebellion breaks out tomorrow in the French colony of Algeria’ and receives help from a rival imperialism such as Italy.  The second is when ‘the Belgian proletariat conquers power . . . Hitler will try to crush the proletarian Belgium’ and’ the French bourgeois government might find itself compelled to help the Belgian workers’ government with arms.’

In a footnote, Trotsky says that: ‘We can leave aside then the question of the class character of the USSR. We are interested in the question of policy in relation to a workers’ state in general or to a colonial country fighting for its independence.’

The Ukrainian working class has not come to power; Ukraine is not a workers’ state and has just celebrated Independence Day, so it is not a colony.  Some have tried to squeeze in the ridiculous idea that it is an oppressed country, but this is false.  It is a country backed by the whole of Western imperialism; is in an open alliance with it, and the war was provoked by both parties to this de facto alliance which sought to make it formal.

Ukraine will most likely lose territory but will not be totally occupied, unless Russia does something stupid, which it has not signalled it will do.  At least part of the territory occupied is pro-Russian so that it is not possible to see either sides’ occupation as being unambiguously liberating.  In other words, thinking in terms of oppressor and oppressed states does not provide a solution; more fundamentally because this is an imperialist war in which Ukraine is on one of the sides, and cloaking it with oppression does not explain either the origin and nature of the war or the approach that socialists should take to it. 

Victory for Ukraine, it is claimed, would be a victory against Russian imperialism, but it would also be a victory for Western imperialism with which Ukraine is now an ally. Claims that this is any sort of anti-imperialist war are therefore obviously spurious.  Only from a campist position can it be claimed that a victory for the camp of western imperialism is preferable to a victory of the Russian.  Complete disorientation and political degeneration explains why supporters of this position regularly accuse those opposed to it of ‘campism’ and describe themselves as ‘internationalist.’ 

It is irrelevant who fired the first shot, as Trotsky noted elsewhere:

‘Imperialism camouflages its own peculiar aims – seizure of colonies, markets, sources of raw material, spheres of influence – with such ideas as “safeguarding peace against the aggressors,” “defence of the fatherland,” “defence of democracy,” etc. These ideas are false through and through. It is the duty of every socialist not to support them but, on the contrary, to unmask them before the people.’

“The question of which group delivered the first military blow or first declare war,” wrote Lenin in March 1915, “has no importance whatever in determining the tactics of socialists. Phrases about the defence of the fatherland, repelling invasion by the enemy, conducting a defensive war, etc., are on both sides a complete deception of the people.”

He goes on: ‘The objective historical meaning of the war is of decisive importance for the proletariat: What class is conducting it? and for the sake of what? This is decisive, and not the subterfuges of diplomacy by means of which the enemy can always be successfully portrayed to the people as an aggressor. Just as false are the references by imperialists to the slogans of democracy and culture.’

Trotsky makes the following summary judgement: ‘If a quarter of a century ago Lenin branded as social chauvinism and as social treachery the desertion of socialists to the side of their nationalist imperialism under the pretext of defending culture and democracy, then from the standpoint of Lenin’s principles the very same policy today is all the more criminal.’  Over one hundred years has passed since Lenin’s judgement, how much more does this criminal treachery deserve condemnation today?

The depths of disorientation can be gleaned from one article reviewing the latest film documentary on the war, in which the author states that the film 2000 Meters to Andriivka is ‘the Ukrainian working class at war.’

‘The young men we see in this documentary about the capture of a village called Andriivka by the 3rd Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian army are a snapshot of the country’s working class. One is a lorry driver, their commander previously worked in a warehouse and a third is a polytechnic student studying electronics. They are virtually all in their early twenties and all volunteered to fight the Russian invasion.’ 

‘Ukraine continues to resist against overwhelming odds at the price of losing its bravest and most self-sacrificing young people’, while telling us why they are fighting, reminding him of the Soviet ‘partisans fighting Nazi invaders.’  What a pity for such a claim that it is the 3rd Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian army that the author lauds, which is composed of today’s Nazis, and hails as its historic heroes the Ukrainian fascists who collaborated with the Nazis in World War II and who fought Soviet partizans.

Aleksei ‘Kolovrat’ Kozhemyakin looks at a photo of himself. Exhibition opening in Kyiv, September 27, 2023. Source: Vechirnii Kyiv

The author, like me, will have been stopped in the streets of Belfast many times by soldiers of the British army who may have previously been lorry drivers or worked in a warehouse; certainly more or less all of them would have been working class.  This would not in the slightest have determined the nature of the British army or answered Lenin’s questions ‘What class is conducting it? and for the sake of what?’  Nor would – who fired the first shot? – have defined the conflict in the North of Ireland.

The working class British squaddies were fighting for an imperialist army in the interests of their imperialist state just as the Ukrainian workers in the 3rd Assault Brigade are fighting for the capitalist Ukrainian state in its alliance with western imperialism, from whom it will have received its funding, training, weapons and intelligence.  That the neo-Nazis within it are not the least bit interested in ‘democracy’ and are bitter enemies of anything remotely resembling socialism just puts the tin hat on the preposterous claims of the social imperialist supporters of Ukraine.

Quotes from Trotsky won’t therefore exculpate today’s social-imperialists who support imperialism while proclaiming socialism.  Even the isolated passage quoted at the start of this post assumes an independent working class movement to apply its own seal, but no such movement exists in Ukraine.  In raising the demand “Don’t betray Ukraine” the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign has fixed a plus sign to the actions of imperialism where no independent working class movement exists in Ukraine to place its own.

The demand “Don’t Betray Ukraine” is not therefore a call to take advantage of a contradiction within imperialism but to take one side of it instead of opposing both.   It is a demand for capitalist solidarity; that one section of it remain united in its struggle against the other. It is a call for Western imperialism to be united in full commitment to a particularly rotten capitalist state, signalling the total abasement of those declaring it.

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What does “Don’t betray Ukraine” mean? (2 of 3)

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In a Democracy Now programme, US professor John Mearsheimer told the Ukrainian ‘democratic socialist’ Denys Pilash  that “the best outcome would be to settle this war now” since it will otherwise  be “settled on the battlefield.’  Pilash could only respond that there were still measures such as sanctions that could be taken by the West to pressure Russia into a ceasefire.  This is not a proposal to end the war but to allow Ukraine to regroup and the West to put itself in a better position to support it when it is recommenced.  Ukraine has not tried to disguise this intention and has not modified its maximal objectives.

The British and French have threatened to put their own troops into Ukraine and want the US to protect them under the formula of ‘security guarantees’.  They hope that this would dissuade Russia from taking the offensive again following any ceasefire, at least to the point that Ukraine thinks itself in a position to take the initiative.  It is not a solution but a transparent attempt to achieve the goals of Ukraine and the West later since they cannot be achieved now.  It promises not the end of the war but its resumption.  This is the position of the Ukrainian state, western imperialism and the ‘democratic socialist’ of Sotsialnyi Rukh interviewed by Democracy Now.

Trump has already moved to enact what Pilash proposed by raising tariffs on India for its purchase of Russian oil, although it has failed to do so on China.  This is a sign of weakness while India has signalled that it will continue buying from Russia.  So this proposal hasn’t worked, just as all the previous sanctions and previous financing, weapons, logistics, intelligence, planning and Western ‘volunteers’ haven’t delivered on their hopes.

Thus, the Sotsialnyi Rukh programme has already failed and promises only to prolong the war with its attendant death and destruction.  The objective for socialists should be to end it as quickly as possible while the policy of the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign and that of Sotsialnyi Rukh is to continue it to victory, apparently regardless of the cost.

Millions of Ukrainians have voted with their feet and have left the country while Trump is trying to send them back, which would only result in the men being conscripted, sent to the front and then killed.  A lot of Ukrainian soldiers have already voted with their feet and deserted, while those seeking to avoid conscription are voting with their feet by running away from recruitment press-gangs or attempting to escape the country.

Sotsialnyi Rukh could give a political voice to this instinctive opposition, born out of healthy suspicion and distrust of many Ukrainians for their state, but this is a road they will not take.  Instead, it champions a war its own state played a major role in creating, and a political and military alliance that subordinates the country to imperialism.  Its view of the war means it can do nothing other than tail-end a corrupt and ethno-nationalist state, its alliance with imperialism and a political regime that is responsible for both.

In Pilash’s fabricated reality Trump is supporting Putin; a view which requires ignoring the sanctions against Russia and the continuation of US military support.  Such a stupid statement so at odds with reality only confirms the reactionary character of the whole Sotsialnyi Rukh programme.

NATO is not the issue, says Pilash, but did he think repeated Russian warnings about Ukrainian membership were so much hot air?  Does its huge role in the war today not tell him something about its centrality to its origin and purpose, and does his enthusiasm for Western ‘security guarantees’ not confirm it?

Pilash thinks that Putin himself is the cause of the expansion of NATO – to Finland and Sweden – and look Russia hasn’t invaded them!  The problem, of course, is that he must assume the importance of NATO expansion for the argument to matter, while pretending that Russian warnings about Ukrainian membership are empty, even while his country is in the process of being devastated because of it.

His support for ‘security guarantees’, which means willingness to go to war against Russia, shows that the purported irrelevance of NATO is absurd, and his attempt to cover his ass by calling on the ‘global south’ to join western powers as guarantors is political camouflage.

Not even all the European NATO powers are prepared to put their troops into Ukraine, or at least to admit to it, including those in Eastern Europe; why would the ‘global south’?  And what, anyway, is the ‘global south’?  Does he want China, India, Brazil or South Africa to put troops into Ukraine?  Would they do it without Russian agreement, and would they want to be made hostage to the good intentions and behaviour of a Ukraine determined to get all its 1991 territory back?

The proposal for a ceasefire is thus not a promise to end the war, and not a resolution to it, but to put into Ukraine the exact forces that Russia invaded to keep out.  It is an incentive to Russia to continue hostilities in order to prevent it happening, and is a statement by the West that any end or even pause to the war will, absent an overall agreement, entail a NATO win. The cries for a ceasefire and peace are thus the habitual imperialist lies now trumpeted by some on the ‘left’.

Pilash states that Washington is about dividing the world into spheres of influence, as if this is something invented by Trump, and will not be the case in the form of the ‘security guarantees’ that he seeks.  Occupation of Ukraine by Western troops would be a fitting end to the claim to be fighting imperialism, colonialism and for independence.  And that’s if WWIII is avoided in the process.

He claims that there is a new axis of authoritarian regimes being created that includes Russia and calls for all the oppressed to unite against all the oppressors, mentioning Palestine as an example.  Who does he think was sitting in the White House with Trump while they discussed the possibility of guarantees; the prime candidates for providing and enforcing them?

Ursula Von der Leyen, who gave Israel a blank cheque to do what it wanted after October 7.  Keir Stamer, who announced on radio that Israel had the right to commit war crimes?  And Donald Trump the main provider of weapons and financing for the genocide.  Where does that leave his notion of uniting the ‘democratic’ countries against the authoritarian regimes in a fight against oppression?

The US, British and French states have a blood-soaked history of imperialist war and the German variety an unrivalled reputation for barbarity.  Their foreign expeditions have never stopped.   Today these states parade their democratic credentials while their foreign policy reverberates at home with threats of an approaching war with Russia and repression of domestic dissent.  

The christening of Ukraine as a beacon of democracy while its regime enforces martial law, refuses new elections, celebrates its fascist history and closes opposition media and political parties is testament to what Western states consider is democratic. 

The pro-war left always advises opponents of the war to follow the lead of the Ukrainian ‘socialists’ but these ‘socialists’ approve and flatter the actions of the imperialist states and encourage their aggression.  In following their lead their Western friends encourage the bellicosity of their own states and their movement to a war against Russia. It leads to them holding up as a beacon of democracy a state renowned as one of the most corrupt in Europe that the Ukrainian people themselves have made repeated attempts to change. 

The policy of supporting their own imperialism through its de facto military alliance with Ukraine is summed up in a few words – “Don’t Betray Ukraine”.

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Forward to part 3

What does “Don’t betray Ukraine” mean? (1 of 3)

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The British Ukraine Solidarity Campaign publicised a rally under the slogans Don’t Betray Ukraine and Occupation is not Peace.  What do these slogans mean?

The demand not to ‘betray’ Ukraine was raised as Western leaders met to discuss the possibility of negotiations with Russia.  The call not to ‘betray’ is obviously directed to them.  So, let’s pause there for a moment.

When the Russian invasion was launched sections of the Western left stated that Ukraine had the right to get armed help from western imperialism (as if the Ukrainian army was not already being armed and trained by the West). While recognising that the West had its own selfish interests in doing so it affected to believe that this would not incur any political cost and would not determine the nature of the war.  Apparently, the selfishness of the west would somehow disappear; it would impose no demands on Ukraine and seek not to impose any of its interests.  A case of selfish imperialism becoming unselfish.

Today’s slogans go much further and it is now this left itself which is calling on their own imperialism to intervene and arm Ukraine.  The bedrock socialist belief that the state is a weapon of the ruling class and that it should be disarmed and abolished has been transformed into the need for it to use its armed forces to do good in the world, or at least in Ukraine.  This is apparently necessary because Russia is imperialist and must be defeated, although this doesn’t apply to the western variety; despite the watchword that the main enemy is at home there is no call for Russian imperialism to defeat their own. Not when it can do good.

The slogan Occupation is not Peace implies that the West must keep arming Ukraine and otherwise supporting it as long as any part of Ukraine is occupied.  In other words the call by the USC is for the war to continue until complete victory.  The implications and consequences of such a victory are many, but it is rarely stated what they are.  In fact, off the top of my head I can’t think of any time this has been explained. There have, of course, been many warnings about the consequences of Ukrainian defeat but that is not, quite obviously, the same thing.

At the moment Russia is winning the war.  Ukraine is increasingly stretched and suffers mainly from a shortage of people to fight for it.  Given what this implies for the number of casualties that the Ukrainian forces must have suffered, this in itself should give pause for thought.  I have read time and time again claims about the scale of Russian losses but a studied ignorance on the scale of Ukrainian deaths (when they are not being falsified).

Like the consequences of victory, left supporters of the war are both keen to proclaim its deathly consequences but seemingly reluctant to demand of Ukraine that it reveal its losses.  No doubt, this is because they believe this will demoralise Ukrainian society and set back the war effort, but this only reveals yet another aspect of the conflicting interests of the Ukrainian state and its western allies on one side and the Ukrainian people and its working class on the other.  The latter are paying the price, they should know exactly what it is.

The slogan Occupation is not Peace is therefore a call to continue a war that cannot be won.  There may be a belief that yet more western (unselfish!) intervention can turn the tide, but even the moron Donald Trump understands that this can only mean escalation that points towards World War III.  Zelensky thinks he can entice Trump by promising that he will buy $100bn of weapons from the US, paid for by ‘Europe’, which means European workers, but even this is an illusion.

Repeated injections of Western arms have been destroyed in the war, along with the Ukrainian troops using them; so much so that stocks in Western armouries have been sorely depleted.  The weapons are not there, and you can’t kill people with dollar bills.  The pro-war left says that the remaining weapons stored in the West should be sent to Ukraine, but this is just another illustration of the stupidity of pretending that western imperialist intervention is unselfish.  They want these weapons for themselves because they might want to fight other (unselfish?) wars, or perhaps ultimately in Ukraine itself

The US and European powers have said that they will build up their military-industrial complex to help produce the arms that can go to Ukraine, which leaves the pro-war left supporting the militarisation of their own countries.  But this will take time, and meanwhile the death and destruction will continue.

The negotiating positions of Ukraine and Russia are not miles apart, but light years, so the war is going to continue with all its disastrous consequences. If the pro-war left insists on complete victory it needs to spell out exactly the imperialist intervention that will be necessary to achieve it.

Don’t hold your breath.

Forward to part 2

The imperialist war against Iran

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Before looking at the ceasefire in the imperialist war against Iran, including its breaking just announced as this is written, we should note the hypocrisy.  The Israeli attack on Iran was a flagrant breach of international law for which Russia has been widely and repeatedly condemned, with the horrendous war supported and prolonged by massive injections of weapons and funding from western imperialism to Ukraine.  The unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia have significantly impacted on the living standards of the working class in Europe, which has committed to massive rearmament that brings us closer to an even greater conflict.

In Gaza, the attacks by the imperialist proxy involve genocide while imperialism has defended Israel’s actions as self-defence and provided the means to implement it.  Opposition to genocide has been criminalised across Europe and the US and equated to terrorism.

The attack on Iran by Israel and then the United States has been defended by posing the issue as Iranian possession of nuclear weapons it doesn’t have, which Israel does. Iranian aggression is condemned while ignoring Zionist aggression in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and now Iran.  Immediately after the Israeli and US attacks the leaders of the European Union called for restraint, de-escalation and for Iran to enter negotiations; ignoring that Iran had never left them, that Isreal and the US had torpedoed existing talks, and that both had just escalated attacks that were against the sacred international law the European leaders said they were defending in Ukraine.  While media focus was on Iran Zionism continued its genocide in Gaza.

There would seem no reason to believe anything the imperialists say, except of course part of the left has accepted their rhetoric in relation to Ukraine, fully supporting the imperialist proxy and the provision of massive financial and military resources.

These wars are hardly unconnected and it is widely understood, even to the consumers of the dumbed-down coverage of the BBC and RTE, that behind them lies the growing conflict between the United States and China, also expressed in the trade war by the US intended to weaken China and its allies and further subordinate its allies in Europe etc.  The eruption and now sudden attempt at ending (or rather suspension) of the war against Iran is inexplicable without understanding this.

This has not prevented sections of the left taking the side of one camp or the other in the inter-imperialist conflict while still claiming either to be against ‘campism’ or against all imperialism.  The really stupid find themselves both supporting the actions of Western imperialism while verbally denouncing it for not doing enough in Ukraine and doing too much in Palestine and Iran.  Apparently imperialism can play a progressive and reactionary role at the same time. Some reached the bottom with their opposition to the dictatorship of Assad leading them to welcome the victory of a new dictatorship of western backed Islamist terrorists.

The attack on Iran was thus one consequence of this conflict with the support of US imperialism vital for Israeli action against its regional rival, which is aligned with Russia and China, if not in the formal or tight relationship that the West has with Israel and Ukraine.  Of course, Israel has its own agenda but it is subordinated to that of US imperialism, with differences mainly arising over secondary issues of method and presentation.

Left supporters of Ukraine among the left will share in its defeat by Russia, having abandoned an independent position, while the left supporters of Russia and China have suffered their own through the defeat of Hamas in Gaza, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Assad in Syria and the weakening of the Iranian state, again without signalling a socialist position in relation to them.

The attack by Israel, agreed and supported by the US, was intended to remove the potential for Iran to recoup some recent losses to its ‘axis of resistance’ and to degrade its position so that it could no longer present as a potential rival hegemon in the region.  Having done this it might be possible to enable regime change, or more likely simply wreck and ruin the country.  The pivot to China, which has been declared as US policy would thus go through west Asia.

US interests require that war with Iran should be a stepping stone and way station to pressing on China and not an obstacle, while for Israel the point about Iran is that it is its immediate and main rival.  The interests of the US and Israel are not therefore identical.  For the US, weakening Iran weakens the alliance that encompasses Russia and China, in doing so revealing its lack of coherence and strength, but Iran is not a threat to the US and there is no principled reason that an accommodation could not be found with it, where Iran to accept its role as a subordinate to the United States.

It is quite possible that the US strike on Iran’s nuclear sites have not achieved the complete success claimed by Trump but that this is less important than the Israeli weakening of Iran’s overall military capability and the deterrence to further escalatory response by a chastened regime.  Claims have been made that the US attack took something of the same form as the retaliation by Iran on US bases – that they were telegraphed and performative to prevent escalation but enough to allow Trump to claim victory while Iran could claim to maintain the credibility of its military deterrence.

The initial attack by Israel achieved significant effects but it has not neutered Iranian capacity to strike back, while the Iranian response has been to demonstrate this capacity while seeking not to provoke a US intervention.  The difficulty is that Israel, just like Ukraine, has an incentive to seek such escalation in order to further involve the US in the war; so we are left with the media obsession with the decision making process of the moron that is Donald Trump and his administration about what exactly it intends to do.

Iran is a very large country with nine times the population of Israel.  That Israel can attack it is solely due to its client status of the US.  While the US could provoke a war with Russia by using the bodies of Ukrainians, Israel cannot invade Iran and neither can the US, not without a war on a scale dwarfing that of Iraq.  Even a campaign of missile strikes and bombing would weaken the US in relation to the resources it can leverage against China.

In this dynamic the unambiguous losers are the people of Iran, oppressed by a brutal theocratic regime, and assailed from outside by imperialist sanctions, missiles and bombs.  They had no say in starting the war or in responding to it but, like the rest of us, can immediately only seek to protect themselves and seek a way to deal with their own ruling class and its state.

The responsibility of socialists is to oppose the imperialist attack on Iran and to demand that their own countries stop supporting it, including the ending of all support to the Zionist state.  This is true in the US, UK, and EU; and also in Ireland where the weasel words of the Irish government are simply a different flavour of hypocrisy to the rest of the imperialist bloc it belongs to.

The point of solidarity with Iran is not to support the reactionary regime and its state but to protect its people and to create the conditions in which the Iranian working class can carry out its own regime change.  Only the working class around the world has a united interest in ending imperialist war, which cannot be done by supporting any of the rival capitalist powers, which in doing so surrenders its political independence. Ending the war through such a movement would have very different consequences to a temporary reprieve arising from any imperialist imposed ‘peace.’

Solidarity with the Palestinian people (3 of 3) – Solidarity with Hamas?

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National demonstration in support of Palestine, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill / The Irish Times

In the previous post I stated that the October 7 attack by Hamas precipitated the current genocide in Gaza, as in to hasten the occurrence of something; hastily, or suddenly.  This does not make Hamas responsible for the genocide.  This responsibility belongs to the Zionist state and to its US sponsor as well as those states that have also supported and defended it.  As the first post made clear, this includes the Irish State, which studiously permits and facilitates the transfer of weapons and munitions from the US to Israel.

The responsibility of the Zionist state for genocide should not be a surprise, since the state itself is a settler colonial creation founded on the dispossession of the native Palestinian population subject to repeated expulsions and attacks.  The viciousness of the Zionist state and of its response to any challenge has routinely been disproportionate and the evolution of Zionist politics from labour to far-right reflects the logic of its existence.

All this does not excuse Hamas from criticism that it provoked an attack for which it was totally unable to defend the people that it claimed to represent.  This is essentially the argument of the Counterpunch article that I referenced before and which is illustrative of the arguments presented in the previous post. 

On the Oct 7 attack the Counterpunch article states that ‘Hamas must have known that Israel would react with massive destruction in Gaza after the October 7th attacks’ and that its  ‘military strategy was suicidal and poorly planned, also entailing war crimes against civilians which the leadership must have known would lead to the total destruction of Gaza.’  It further argues that ‘those who wish to engage in deluded fantasies like endless military confrontation having been the only avenue available to Hamas are quite deficient in their analysis which is bereft of intellectual rigor, to say the least. This sentiment is often felt by those attempting to appear the most revolutionary by taking what they perceive to be the most radical position.’

The failures of Hamas flow from the nature of the organisation: ‘the bulk of Palestinian resistance fighters—the actual fighters of Hamas and other entities—are acting out of anger and a desire for revenge, as the majority of them have lost family members due to Israeli attacks’; however ‘Hamas’ leaders . . . have climbed to the apex of power amongst the exploited and now seek their own privileges, power and financial gain.’

Hamas are described as corrupt ‘kleptocrats keen on getting rich, content with the privileges they possess in real life, and if they’re assassinated or killed in combat by the Israelis, then they believe they’ll be absolved in the afterlife—as Islamic fundamentalists do.’  An example of their corruption is provided – ‘Hamas had agreed to let the PA develop Gaza’s natural gas fields in exchange for a portion of the profits during negotiations with the US, Israel and Egypt. Simply put, Hamas’ leaders had decided they would sell their own people out to the Americans and Israelis—who effectively control the PA—in exchange for a cut on the back end.’

It is ironic therefore that the authors of the article argue that this is the alternative to HAMAS’s militarist adventurism and that the example provided by the Irish peace process is one to be emulated.  The Irish example helps point to why they are wrong.

The success of the Good Friday Agreement, such as it actually exists, is largely due to the failure and unpopularity of the militarism of the IRA.  What is wrong with this peace process is not that this militarism was abandoned but that without it the IRA and Irish republicanism generally had no political alternative to British imperialism.  The circumstances in Palestine are radically different from the North of Ireland, including that there was never any threat of genocide to the nationalist population.

So, while imperialism in Ireland and the Irish state are genuine in seeking a pacified Northern state with nationalist participation in the local administration, the view that ‘for now only a two state solution along the 1967 borders seems even remotely achievable’ after ‘Palestine [is] developed and modernized under US-Israeli-PA rule’ is hopelessly optimistic and misguided.  The two state policy has been endorsed by most of western imperialism for a long time and shown to be a fraud.  The Zionist regime has rejected it and, as the authors explain , its initial support for Hamas was precisely to help prevent it.

On its own, their proposal for the economic and social development of the Palestinian areas (under what currently could only be some sort of imperialist rule) is not wrong.  It is better, infinitely better, than genocide, but it fails to appreciate that the policy of genocide and steps to ethnic cleansing are a rejection of it by imperialism and Zionism, and of itself is not a policy of the working class, rather than simply potentially the best current conditions to allow one to develop. 

The article, at best, falls into the familiar trap of providing ‘solutions’ that are not those of the working class because the working class cannot provide its own. It does this instead of accepting weakness and pursuing a policy of opposition, one that doesn’t pretend to the current possibility of socialist revolution.  The writings of Marx and Engels are replete with such a policy where the working class is too weak or undeveloped to impose its own power but should not therefore politically support that of the bourgeoisie.

One of the ways by which better conditions for a working class alternative can be created is a working class led solidarity movement that sees this as one of its tasks.  This involves opposition to genocide and western imperialist complicity but also an open policy of supporting a working class policy and movement.

This is a long way from the current humanitarian solidarity that refuses to take a position on the political solution while, in doing so, leaving reactionary forces to fill in the gap.  It involves hoping that imperialism will do what it has demonstrated it has no intention of doing; hoping the Zionist state will be forced by imperialism to accept it, and hoping the reactionary Arab regimes will play a positive role in pushing this along, as opposed to their current closer and closer accommodation with both imperialism and Zionism.

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Solidarity with the Palestinian people (2 of 3) – Socialist solidarity

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Belfast City Hall 5 April 2025

A friend sent me an article on the Counterpunch website that looked at Hamas and the October 7 attack that precipitated the current genocide in Gaza, which I will look at it in the next post.  It raises issues about solidarity with oppressed groups by socialists and what, if anything, socialists have to say that is different.  Having something different to say isn’t in itself a reason to say it, but if socialists think they have a distinctive view of the world and don’t have anything very different to say it implies that their socialism isn’t very important.

Socialism is international or it is nothing.  By this we mean that the cause of the working class in other countries is our cause and that socialism cannot exist within a single country.  This means that we seek to advance the socialist struggle of the workers in every country and that a victory in another country is a victory for us.  This is the material basis of solidarity for socialists.

Of course, in doing so we oppose oppression in every country, but you do not need to be a socialist to do this and we are socialists not just because we oppose oppression but because we believe only socialism – only the actions of the working class – can defeat oppression and establish freedom.  And this goes for the struggle in Palestine as well, although often these considerations appear to disappear when socialists discuss it.

Instead, we get statements such as the following – ‘that we must not only oppose oppression but support the oppressed, the right to resist oppression and the resistance itself.  We also get formulas that we should not take sides in intra-Palestinian political disputes, which only the Palestinians should engage in and determine.

If we work backwards – what is this last idea but a form of identity politics?  That Palestinians are a group apart with ideas and movements separate from the rest of the world’s struggles with nothing to learn from them; nothing to learn from the long history of working class struggle across the planet? If they are so different as to have nothing to learn then they would have nothing to teach us either. Either they are uniquely blessed with a political leadership beyond criticism because it never gets anything wrong, or it gets it wrong but is beyond help.  If neither of these are true, is it because we have no right to speak about their struggle or only to do so to voice our support? (Do we take this view about every struggle: of the French working class or German or any other?).

If it is the last argument, this simply leaves us back at the start and fails to argue why socialists have no right to state what we think is good or bad for the struggle; one that we have said is part of our own world-wide struggle and on which we are also at least partly dependent.  In short, the international struggle for socialism is something that involves Palestine and therefore involves us.

It might be argued that the struggle in Palestine is not about socialism, but this is no answer since socialists have a position on all struggles against oppression and these very often do not immediately raise the possibility of a socialist victory.  Otherwise, in today’s condition of the class struggle, we would silence ourselves across most of the world.

Of course, what we have to say should be within the framework of solidarity with the oppressed and should have something relevant and positive to contribute, but part of our solidarity is that we believe we do have something distinctive to contribute, not least because for us, solidarity is not an act of altruistic humanitarian concern for others but is part of our own fight.  The only basis for refusing to engage in debate on the way forward for the Palestinian struggle is the belief that it is separate from us: ‘In our thousands! In our millions! We are all Palestinians!’ becomes not only untrue (we are not suffering genocide!) but is also denied and rejected by the claim that we are not permitted to offer our own views.

This, however, is the most common view of solidarity, which thus becomes a sort of activist charitable exercise fed by the politics of self-determination of nations.  The socialist view is the primacy of self-determination of the working class, as an international class that can unite politically and organisationally, which is obviously impossible without debate, argument and disagreement.

Where does this leave us with the formulation that we must not only oppose oppression but support the oppressed, the right to resist oppression and the resistance itself? 

First, even oppressed people’s and nations are composed of classes involving class exploitation and oppression.  Genocide only partly qualifies this, as those with lots of money will always find a way to use it to their benefit.  Class divisions have a bearing not only on whether and how to resist oppression but also on the objectives of resistance.  Class struggle doesn’t disappear and socialists above all should recognise this in their solidarity and within the solidarity movement.

So what about the right to resist?  Socialists are in favour of the working class and other oppressed groups resisting exploitation and oppression but do so on the basis that capitalism exploits and oppresses, and that class struggle exists as a result.  As Marxists we understand that capitalism gives rise to the potential for socialism because of the nature of its development.  From this arises the struggle for socialism, not some moral right to resist that is independent of the circumstances and conditions in society.  This is important for how we resist, which we will explore in relation to Gaza in the next post.

In general, however, socialists are always to the fore in advocating resistance to exploitation and oppression, with the view that advancing towards the alternative is what matters above all.  We therefore support the oppressed by seeking to end their oppression, which ultimately can only be through the working class becoming the ruling class of society.

This leads to the final claim, that those in solidarity with the oppressed must also solidarize with the resistance and with the resistance movement, and this is where the biggest difference arises.  Since our view of solidarity is not dictated by any moral assertion there can be no moral claim on us to support resistance movements that are themselves reactionary, and this obviously includes Islamic political movements (as opposed to democratic and socialist movements composed of religious believers).

Solidarity arises from common interests and purposes.  What common interests and purposes arise between reactionary movements in conflict with imperialism and socialists?  To ask the question is almost to answer it.  Both can be opposed to imperialism on the grounds of some common effects of its rule or intervention but reactionary movements that come into conflict with imperialism are not anti-capitalist, never mind socialist, so their opposition is limited and qualified.  Ultimately their interests and purposes are opposed to those of socialists and is the reason for separate organisation and politics in the first place.

Since our primary interests and purposes are separate any common activity is also limited and qualified and there can be no unqualified or unconditional support.  Common objectives may allow episodic common actions and organisational cooperation to achieve them but there are no grounds for avoiding criticism or separate organisation.

We therefore do not give political support to reactionary movements on the grounds that they embody the resistance of the oppressed, because that resistance is politically reactionary and cannot represent their full and complete interests.  Whether these movements are in our own country or another does not fundamentally change this but at most determines the emphasis to be placed on opposition to our own state for whatever role it plays in the oppression.

In practice many socialists acknowledge this while denying it in words and will criticise the Palestinian Authority but not Hamas, for example on the illogical grounds that ‘denunciation of HAMAS is simply a mechanism for supporting genocide.’  Such an overblown statement scarcely warrants a response.  See below a better statement by this organisation to the Belfast rally pictured above. 

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Forward to part 3