We are likely closer to the beginning of this anti-fascist war than to its end, and this is a reality that everyone in the anti-imperialist or working-class struggles must account for. I don’t say this because I believe Russia’s present military operation against fascist Kiev is less than half-way close to ending; I say it because that particular anti-fascist action will not be enough to neutralize the larger threat posed by imperialism and its proxies. And the only way we can defeat this threat is by rebuilding the international workers movement, whose current deficiencies are the reason why imperialism remains so hard to beat on so many fronts.
The problem isn’t that Washington is too strong; Washington is weaker than it’s ever been, and it was never as strong as it portrayed itself. The problem is that the popular masses are still far from constructing a modern equivalent of the 20th century’s global workers movement, which would immensely multiply the fighting power of the anti-imperialist bloc. Until we rectify this inadequacy, the multipolar era is going to be a time of frustrating cycles for the anti-imperialist forces; an experience where the hegemon’s opponents gain a victory in one area, but then are set back, and must fight new battles that don’t seem to be building on the previous progress. The only way to get reliable progress is by advancing the class struggle, giving the proletariat the leverage it will need to win against fascism and empire.
With how the balance of power looks now, such a cycle is where things are headed on the Ukrainian front, as well as in many other places. Whenever the Ukraine operation does end, all indications point to the immediate outcome looking like a “frozen conflict”; this is because unless Russia ends the existence of Ukraine’s fascist state, and doesn’t allow it to survive at any size, then NATO will continue to have a Nazi-led proxy that it can re-arm for the next war.
The current anti-fascist operation has been worthwhile, but it will only let Russia fully defeat Ukraine’s ruling Banderite Nazis if the present effort becomes a prelude to a new operation. One that’s been more substantially guided by the proletarian forces than the present operation has been. And if such an operation doesn’t come, then the masses who live under this post-war Ukrainian Nazi state will need our full support in winning back their democracy, and throwing off the fascist NATO junta.
These next steps in the anti-fascist struggle will require an international workers united front, built in partnership with revolutionary allies from every country. And these global partners in the struggle have distinct tasks, depending on their conditions. As the imperial menace goes on its offensive, we must look back to what the Comintern said in May 1943, when the peoples of the world needed to fulfill different roles within the fight against Hitlerism:
In countries of the Hitlerite bloc the fundamental task of the working class, toilers and all honest people consists in giving all help for the defeat of this bloc by sabotage of the Hitlerite military machine from within and by helping to overthrow the governments guilty of war. In countries of the anti-Hitlerite coalition the sacred duty of the widest masses of the people, and in the first place of foremost workers, consists in aiding by every means the military efforts of the governments of these countries aimed at the speediest defeat of the Hitlerite bloc and the assurance of the friendship of nations based on their equality.
At the same time the fact must not be lost sight of that the separate countries that are members of the anti-Hitlerite coalition have their own particular problems. For example, in countries occupied by the Hitlerites that have lost their state of independence the basic task of the foremost workers and of the wide masses of people consists in promoting the armed struggle developing into a national war of liberation against Hitlerite Germany. At the same time the war of liberation of freedom-loving peoples against the Hitlerite tyranny, which has brought into movement the masses of people, united them without difference of party or religion in the ranks of the powerful anti-Hitlerite coalition, has demonstrated with still greater clearness that the general national uprising and mobilization of people for the speediest victory over the enemy can be best of all and most fruitfully carried out by the vanguard of the working-class movement of each separate country, working within the framework of its own country.
This is where we need to orient ourselves around at this stage: the building of proletarian power, and the leveraging of this power to the effect that imperialism’s war efforts can be maximally obstructed. The Russian working-class movement has the role of ensuring its country seriously resists the U.S.-Banderite aggressions, while the workers in the countries that are waging the war on Russia have a duty to undermine the military machines of their governments.
Without a central focus on the class struggle, we’ll be lost as political actors, and our enemies will find more openings to sabotage our movement; a movement can’t defend itself when it doesn’t even know what it’s trying to do. We must act with the understanding that this third world war is a conflict between the workers and the capitalists, and therefore the efforts at resisting the U.S. empire can only succeed on the basis of the proletarian struggle.
Only the proletariat has the ability to shut down the foundational aspects of the economy; this is why the proletariat has always been the core revolutionary subject. Something we need to account for during this stage of the revolutionary struggle, though, is that our class enemies are using the weapon of de-proletarianization. The most extreme example of this is in Gaza, where the overwhelming majority of people are no longer working class because their society has been bombed into an apocalyptic state. The struggle that Gaza’s people are having to wage is a sheer, raw battle against death. In this way, Gaza’s politics are a pure class struggle; in a giant death camp, the only political movements that can exist are ones which have dedicated themselves to resistance.
We all must take example from these struggles by the people who are still being subjected to colonization and extreme exploitation. Their movements have been forced to commit to the fight against fascism and empire, because even when they offer the enemy a compromise, the enemy refuses so it can continue exterminating them; this is what the Zionist occupier did when Hamas offered to step down from power. The hegemon hopes to keep its challengers trapped in a cycle of setbacks, and make them perpetually short-sighted in their strategic goals. But as time goes on, and the costs of engaging in half-measures get steeper, more will realize we must adopt the same posture which these most serious of resistance movements have.
There will be plenty of opportunistic, pro-capitalist elements that try to obstruct this strategic shift, and convince us that we must appease the enemy for the sake of “peace.” But the reality of our fight’s demands are getting clearer all the time, and we have the mandate to steer the anti-imperialist movement in this more principled direction.
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