The correct position on the Ukraine war, the one taken by the Sovintern-affiliated orgs, is that this is a war of resistance by the working class against U.S./Banderite aggression. Should the European governments push Russia into expanding this resistance, as they’re increasingly trying to do, our position will have a chance to become popular among the broader working masses. But this will only happen if we wage our ideological struggle in a way that we didn’t after the conflict’s last big escalation four years ago.
Back then, at least in the United States, the groups that took the right stance on Russia treated this matter as being only an ideological struggle. This was because they only knew how to embody the ideological form of the communist movement—which had long been destroyed—and they didn’t have the practical insights about what it means to build real working-class power. They didn’t seize upon this moment to intervene within organized labor, to grow their efforts at agitation among the masses, or to build themselves up organizationally. This is a critical self-criticism we must apply to ourselves, and use to correct our practice as the next geopolitical ruptures occur.
The European governments are taking massive measures to prepare for a larger war right now, and recent history shows that we should treat such a conflict as a serious possibility. This was the first lesson many of us took from the leadup to Russia’s special military operation: though it can seem like the U.S. and its satellite states are just engaging in hyperbole when they say they fear major Russian action, the idea that Russia will act isn’t necessarily a psyop, as the bulk of antiwar commentators believed it to be prior to February 2022. The other big lesson we were forced to internalize, the one we urgently need to convey to the working-class movement, is that you always must investigate which class forces are behind a war. Because when we understand the critical role that the workers had in bringing Russia towards intervening in Ukraine, we’ll know how to navigate the class conflict during the next geopolitical escalations.
Lenin, even as he excoriated the “socialists” who sided with their imperialist governments in the First World War, pointed out how there are circumstances in which backing a military action can actually be the revolutionary stance. The crucial question is whether one has been honest in looking at which class the action benefits:
We Marxists do not belong to that category of people who are unqualified opponents of all war. We say: our aim is to achieve a socialist system of society, which, by eliminating the division of mankind into classes, by eliminating all exploitation of man by man and nation by nation, will inevitably eliminate the very possibility of war. But in the war to win that socialist system of society we are bound to encounter conditions under which the class struggle within each given nation may come up against a war between the different nations, a war conditioned by this very class struggle. Therefore, we cannot rule out the possibility of revolutionary wars, i.e., wars arising from the class struggle, wars waged by revolutionary classes, wars which are of direct and immediate revolutionary significance.
Still less can we rule this out when we remember that though the history of European revolutions during the last century, in the course of 125–135 years, say, gave us wars which were mostly reactionary, it also gave us revolutionary wars, such as the war of the French revolutionary masses against a united monarchist, backward, feudal and semi-feudal Europe. No deception of the masses is more widespread today in Western Europe, and latterly here in Russia, too, than that which is practised by citing the example of revolutionary wars. There are wars and wars. We must be clear as to what historical conditions have given rise to the war, what classes are waging it, and for what ends.
If the conflict between Russia and NATO expands, the narrative we’ll hear is that Russia’s “aggression” has been what’s worsened the inflation of prices, rather than the actions of our own ruling class. The goal will be to convince us that Russia’s intervention not only lacks justification, but is the source of our living standards crisis. To defeat this lie, we’ll need to reframe the conflict in the same way Lenin recommended communists talk about the great war. He explained how the only way for the conflict to truly end was through workers revolution, because as long as the imperialists remained in power they would keep the war going. The same is true for the present war, but in a different way. We’re now in a situation where global financial power has become centralized in the United States, and therefore only the defeat of the U.S. regime can end the geopolitical conflict.
Said Lenin in response to the reform-minded idealists who sought to avoid revolution, while still claiming to be for peace:
For all its hatred of war and desire for peace, the Russian people could do nothing against the war, so long as it was being waged by the tsar, except work for a revolution against the tsar and for the tsar’s overthrow. And that is what happened. History proved this to you yesterday and will prove it to you tomorrow. We said long ago that the mounting Russian revolution must be assisted. We said that at the end of 1914. Our Duma deputies were deported to Siberia for this, and we were told: “You are giving no answer. You talk about revolution when the strikes are off, when the deputies are doing hard labour, and when you haven’t a single newspaper!” And we were accused of evading an answer. We heard those accusations for a number of years. We answered: You can be indignant about it, but so long as the tsar has not been overthrown we can do nothing against the war. And our prediction was justified. It is not fully justified yet, but it has already begun to receive justification. The revolution is beginning to change the war on Russia’s part. The capitalists are still continuing the war, and we say: Until there is a workers’ revolution in several countries the war cannot be stopped, because the people who want that war are still in power.
The same principle applies to today’s conflict. As long as the imperial regime in Washington remains intact, this conflict will continue, because the imperialists have reached a stage where maintaining endless war is their only way to preserve global financial dominance. Their strategy for extending the American century, and containing China, is to keep constantly attacking China and its partners. Russia can get far in beating back Washington’s offensive, but it can’t overthrow the U.S. regime. Only a workers revolution can do this. By emphasizing this reality about what it will take to get peace, and how the class war is intertwined with our geopolitical confrontation, we can narratively outmaneuver the dogmatic opportunists who use “no war but class war” to separate the workers from Russia’s resistance. We must go into the unions, into the popular struggles, and convey this message to the working masses.
The circumstances will absolutely create a new opening to put forth this message; whether the next escalation comes in the form of a broader European war or something else, the 21st century’s geopolitical chaos has only begun to expand. We missed certain revolutionary opportunities earlier on in this war, but we can learn from our mistakes, and respond to the upcoming disruptions in a way that actually brings the masses to our position.
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