Russia’s war against the U.S.-installed Kiev Nazi regime has gotten far, but for it to be completed, the world’s workers must take their struggle much further. I will summarize what exactly is holding back the progress of the Russian resistance, and which actions our popular movements will need to take in order to overcome these obstacles:
—Just because a revolutionary campaign has gotten far, doesn’t mean it’s complete, or close to being complete. Russia’s resistance has achieved major progress, but it’s not yet brought victory. This progress is so significant because it represents an exponential improvement upon the stunted gains which the revolutionary forces had previously been making. With the USSR’s fall, the global proletarian movement was forced into survival mode, at least outside the existing socialist countries. In Russia, the workers have since been able to recover much faster than in most countries, but they are still facing a capitalist ruling class. One that seeks to make Russia surrender to the imperial hegemon, and thereby get Washington to unfreeze the assets that it’s blocked via the sanctions.
—Because of the obstructionism by Russia’s ruling class (which is really an extension of the USA’s ruling class, as it’s beholden to the interests of American finance) the war has taken far too long. This doesn’t mean it should end now at all costs, as that would mean victory for the fascists and their imperial backers; and we should combat the narrative from the Trump White House about how it will bring “peace” through negotiations. Peace will only come when all remnants of Ukraine’s fascist U.S. proxy state have been destroyed, and Washington no longer has a tool in the Ukraine that it can use for further war maneuvers against Russia. In order to realize this completion for the goals of Russia’s Operation Z, though, the global workers movement will need to rebuild itself to a far greater extent than it so far has.
—An essential part of this reconstructive mission is to understand that when we seek to regain what we lost with the USSR’s demise, we are not trying to simply recreate the socialist movement as it had previously existed. The old socialism can never be brought back, it needs to be replaced with a new socialism. The workers and anti-imperialist movements have been able to use the skeleton of the old socialism to make new victories reachable; this was what Russia’s workers did when they took advantage of the Soviet system’s popular support within Russia, and of the remaining institutional structures from the Soviet era, to pressure the bourgeois government into undertaking Operation Z. To merely try to ride the wave of this achievement into workers victory would be a fatal mistake, though. We cannot become complacent.
—The Russian communists got this win because they recognize that the old socialism can’t be copied; because they see that the only way forward for the proletarian struggle is through meeting the needs of the masses as they exist today. One of these needs is for the American financial empire and its fascist proxies to be met with sufficient counter-force; another one of these needs is for the proletarian organizations to gain the upper hand against capital, which on a practical level is where the Communist Party of the Russian Federation mainly puts its focus. The party recognizes that Russia’s government continues to wage and intensify its war against the country’s workers. And the party hasn’t forsaken the struggle against these capitalist assaults just because Putin has made certain concessions to the communists. We must all take example from this principled practice by the CPRF.
—Another area of the struggle that we can’t turn our backs on is Palestine. The ceasefire has not brought the Gaza genocide to an end, nor has it made the struggle against this genocide any less important; it’s meant the resistance has successfully hindered the occupier’s colonization attempts, while the occupier is now trying to use the ceasefire as cover for further mass murder. Killings by the occupier remain frequent, aid is still being impeded, and the Rafah crossing is still closed, stopping Gaza’s people from getting medical treatment. These realities are so critical to emphasize within anti-imperialist spaces because among the anti-Marxist, pro-capitalist elements of “dissident” politics, there is a push to de-center Palestine for the sake of advancing an idealistic narrative. The fact that the Trump White House continues to facilitate genocide in Gaza destroys the idealist notions about Trump being genuine in wanting “peace,” whether with Russia or with any other resistance force.
—Continuing to press forward the struggle for Palestine is also essential towards rebuilding the workers movement, which can only make gains if it faces our conditions as they are right now. If it confronts all the most relevant matters within the struggle, out of which Palestine is an absolutely central one. The strategic victory which was Operation Al-Aqsa Flood had been partly inspired by how far Russia got in combating the imperial hegemon, meaning every gain made by Gaza’s armed resistance coalition is connected to the gains within Z. We must apply our solidarity actions to every new front which opens up in this global anti-imperialist war, and we must do so in a way which centers the actual workers struggle. It is not enough to support these resistance struggles through demonstrations, which often receive excessive focus from organizers anyhow.
—We have to organize the proletariat around cutting off shipments and trade to the Zionist entity. We have to organize them towards winning victories against the employers, whether on a national or local level. We have to build independent worker organizations that can let the proletariat act outside the gatekeeping of the labor bosses. (By which I don’t mean “red unions” that only split organizing efforts, but rather communist parties or mass orgs that truly embody dedication to the class war.) These actions are not just essential for ensuring workers victory in our own countries. They’re the practical things we can do to help ensure that the anti-imperialist forces—whether Russia, China, Palestine, Yemen, Venezuela, or other sources of resistance—defeat finance capital and its proxies. Every single part of this struggle is connected, and when we understand this, we gain the sense of direction which can make us effective.
This is the strategic situation we are in at this moment, and these are the missions we’re tasked with. Discussions about these facts must always serve the purpose of facilitating concrete actions, not just by those within the movement but by the broader masses—who are the ones which actually carry out revolution. All gaps between where we are now, and where we’ll need to be in order to defeat the hegemon, will be closed if we take these tasks seriously.
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