The debate on the war on the Tendance Coatesy blog has given rise to lots of references to other past conflicts that the supporters of Ukraine spin to argue that we should now support it today.  A typical one includes the following:

‘The arguments to support Vietnam against the US and the Spanish Republic against the fascists were not that the forces leading these struggles were good. It is that expelling the US from Vietnam, and preventing the victory of Spanish fascism, were very far from a matter of indifference from a working-class, socialist point of view.’

The first problem with this is that the poster (a better word would be imposter) has argued that the forces leading the struggle in Ukraine are good and this includes the Ukrainian capitalist state and western imperialism.  As we noted in the previous post, he argues that imperialism is defending the working class.

That is the first point.

The second point is that, yes indeed, Marxists were not indifferent to the struggle against US imperialism in Vietnam or the Spanish civil war against fascism, but these show how far away his position in support of ‘Ukraine’ is from the Marxist position on these wars and the current one.

Marxists opposed US imperialism in Vietnam and worked for its defeat and opposed fascism in Spain with the same objective.  In the former, Vietnam was a colony fighting for independence, and no matter how many times supporters of Ukraine claim it was a colony they cannot claim that it still is, although one poster on Tendance Coatsey didn’t appear to understand the difference between the past and present tense.  Ukraine was and is an independent capitalist state and it is not the job of socialists to defend independent capitalist states in whatever wars they engage. Would, for example, the pro-Ukraine left still be supporting it if it still had its armed forces occupying Iraq alongside the United States?

In Spain a bourgeois democratic government was being challenged by a mass workers movement that had the potential to overthrow this government and create a workers’ state.  Supporters of Ukraine can’t point to an independent working class movement in that country, and far from wanting to overthrow the Ukrainian capitalist state they want us all to join imperialism in supporting it and ensuring it is armed to the teeth.  The difference is very clear and, absent malign motives, it is difficult to see why this is always missed and ignored.  In Spain the obvious task was to defeat the fascist insurrection, not as an alternative to overthrowing the bourgeois Republican government but as part of the same process of permanent revolution.

What Marxists did not do (or should not have done) was politically support either the bourgeois Republican Government in Spain or the Stalinist Viet Cong in Vietnam. What was necessary then and necessary now is the independent organisation of the working class that will fight against its enemies both foreign and domestic. What left supporters of Russia fail to appreciate is that if there was an independent working class movement in Ukraine it would not be supporting the Russian invasion but fighting it and it own capitalist state. The invasion by the Russian state is not about the liberation of Ukrainian workers, as its treatment of its own amply demonstrates. How this would be done would be a question of tactics but absolutely excluded is support for one’s own capitalist state and failure to organise against it on the grounds that it is doing what you want it to do already.

In Spain, it was support for the bourgeois government that ensured that the fight against fascism would not succeed, while in Vietnam the Stalinists repressed the Marxist movement and you can now visit the country as a tourist to view its capitalist society, although perhaps without seeing the sweatshops.

Vietnam was fighting a war against colonialism while in Spain the fight against fascism was to open up the possibility of socialist revolution.  In Ukraine the war was provoked by the moves by that state to join the world’s premier imperialist military alliance, and there is nothing progressive about this.  In so far as Ukrainian workers have needed to defend themselves they have needed to do so to prevent their state taking this course before the war; they need now to oppose the war in whatever way they can, and either in ‘victory’ or defeat they will need to resist the predations of western imperialism once the war is over.  The reactionary character of the Russian invasion is illustrated by the fact that winning Ukrainian workers to the second and third tasks is now immeasurably harder because of it.

‘Ukraine’ is so far away from any notion that it is involved in a progressive war that we have hundreds, if not thousands, of far right Russians fighting for it against Russia because, it appears, Russia isn’t reactionary enough for them!  And this is the ‘Ukraine’ socialists are supposed to support!

That such repugnant outcomes are advanced is the result of the lack of any class analysis by the supporters of ‘Ukraine’ who wrap the interests of the working class within its capitalist state, which itself is embraced by western imperialism, leaving the pro-Ukrainian Left supporting western imperialism and searching for spurious and fraudulent  arguments to defend themselves.

So, we get such comments that there aren’t enough imperialist troops in Ukraine to justify calling it a proxy war, when everyone and their dog knows Ukraine would have ended the war long before now without imperialist intervention.  And we get the apologetics for the prominent role of fascism by saying that they really only get a small vote, which reminds me of all the loyalist paramilitaries in the north of Ireland who don’t bother to vote for they own political fronts but for the DUP because this mainstream party adequately reflects their reactionary views.  In this, as in so much else, the pro-war left is protected by the bourgeois media, which censors the many indicators of fascist sympathies within the Ukrainian armed forces, and regurgitates the moral outrage that feeds the war and imperialist interests.

Back to part 1

Forward to part 3

Over on the Tendance Coatesy blog a debate on the war has been taking place.  After over 90 comments Andrew, the host, made a short comment that finished with:

‘The whole thing is simple: they invaded. They are wrong. We should do everything to stand with Ukraine.’

So there you go. The whole argument that supporting ‘Ukraine’ does not follow inescapably from opposing the Russian invasion has passed Andrew by.  The argument about why the invasion took place, its causes, results and consequences are ignored.

What is this ‘Ukraine’ we are asked to support, and should workers support capitalist states, are questions likewise ignored, as is why the imperative to support ‘Ukraine’ also requires support for intervention by western imperialism.

Why are they wrong?  What is the harm caused and what use, if any, does Marxism have in determining this, and setting out what should be done about it?  Is there any class analysis that would distinguish our determining what is wrong from the wall to wall blitz of the capitalist media and its nauseating hypocrisy?  Or is it really so ‘simple’ that there are no differences between the socialist view and the propaganda of Western capitalism, so that supporting ‘Ukraine’ is so simple a thing that it requires no interrogation?

All these questions are avoided by ignoring the debate in the previous 90 odd comments; but the attempt to simplify things fails because it is simply a device for avoidance.  Like the bourgeois media it attempts to compel us to forget how we got here, the nature of the warring parties and their objectives; leaving us with the impression that the consequences of supporting the Ukrainian state and western imperialism will be their claims to bring about ‘freedom’.  As I have repeatedly pointed out: only one fact matters for those who proclaim support for ‘Ukraine’–there has been an invasion and we should oppose it beside everyone else who does.

One other contributor, Jim Denham, shows no fear in stating more clearly what this means in political terms, in the process showing that the emperor is naked and certainly wearing no socialist arguments.  In a comment, I accused him of believing that ‘the Ukrainian capitalist state and imperialism are defending the Ukrainian working class”.  To which he replies – “OF COURSE they effin’ well are – for their own reasons – right now. WE warn that this will not last, but the Ukranian workers are right to make use of it. What sort of fantasy world do you live in?”

Well, to answer his last point first–the sort of fantasy world in which capitalist states and imperialism doesn’t defend the working class but sends it out to fight and die on their behalf. To believe that on this question, in the midst of the largest war since 1945, involving dozens of countries and threatening to escalate into a world conflagration; that in these circumstances imperialism is defending the working class of the world is not simply very unlikely, it is impossible. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence but there’s been plenty of the former and a dearth of the latter.

It is always admitted that western imperialism is doing the right thing for its ‘own reasons’ but its supporters who think that the stars of imperialism and the working class have simply aligned are like believers in astrology who divine from this alignment that everything will be alright.  They don’t say what these interests of imperialism are; in other words, they don’t say what imperialism will do if it wins. Nor do they allow into their consciousness the reality that victory for imperialism will mean it will be free to enjoy the fruits of its victory, achieve its purposes, satisfy its ‘reasons’, and impose its interests.

The idea that the Ukrainian working class, which is not even independently politically organised, would, upon ‘victory’, then drop its support for the Ukrainian capitalist state and shed its nationalism is too ludicrous to believe; which is why it is never explained how it would happen.  The war and the support for it is already being employed to destroy general democratic rights, workers rights, and impose privatisation and austerity.  War is sending thousands upon thousands of working class Ukrainians to their deaths, and opposition to all this can only come from opposing it.  In this, they will face the opposition of the western pro-war Left, for whom nothing is more important, and everything is subordinated to, the ‘simple’ task of helping Ukraine win the war.

So, if imperialism was victorious, as this pro-war Left earnestly desires, what would the results be?  What reason is it fighting that apparently can accommodate, and not conflict with, the interests of the working class?

This is easy to answer, because we have history to guide us and US imperialism has been quite open about why it is spending so much money supporting Ukraine–“because Russians are dying . . . the best money we’ve spent”.  Defeat for Russia would bring forward regime change that would allow the placing of another Yeltsin stooge and subordination of Russia to western imperialism.  It would reintroduce the shock therapy that previously devastated the country, causing catastrophic levels of poverty and reduced life expectancy.

In Ukraine it would boost western imperialist interests and continue the subordination of the country that had suffered, by 2021, a reduction in Gross Domestic Product of 38 per cent from the 1990 level, when the country became independent.  This calamitous fall compares with a corresponding increase for world GDP of 75 per cent; so by 2021 the per capita GDP of Ukraine was roughly equal to that of Paraguay, Guatemala and Indonesia.

It would then mean that the real target of imperialism–China–would be surrounded and more easily isolated and vulnerable to the subordination that Russia had previously suffered and would suffer again in defeat.  All this would mean the continuation of war and devastation of the lives of the millions affected.

Opposition to this imperialist project owes nothing to sympathy or solidarity with the Russian or Chinese capitalist states but to the working classes of both countries, to the workers of others who would also suffer from the subordination of their countries, and the working class within the western imperialist countries who would be tied more firmly to their own exploitation, with the suppression of freedom that comes from imperialist oppression abroad.

Opposition to the imperialist intervention in Ukraine is not therefore on behalf of the Ukrainian state, or the Russian state, or the Chinese state.  It is for the working class of each of these countries, providing a basis for their future unity. Support for war can only promote their division.

Karl Marx, in the Communist Manifesto, argued that  ‘Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.’ 

The momentary interests of the working class require an end to the war, while taking care of the future requires we don’t cheerlead imperialism.

But if none of this matters, if matters are simple, and if the workers of the world can rely on imperialism until perhaps they can’t, then knock yourself out and support ‘Ukraine’.

Forward to part 2