Wednesday, March 12, 2025

CURRENT SITUATION: NOTES ON THE WORLD CRISIS (39. Russian Imperialism's War of Aggression Against Ukraine * I)

 


*I

 

* Note on the three levels of inter-imperialist contradictions, which we explain in point 1 of the following summary:

 

How are the contradictions developing in the current war situation?

 

Last February marked three years of the current war of aggression by Russian imperialism against the oppressed nation of Ukraine. The development of the contradictions that gave rise to it and their interrelationship remain unresolved today:

 

1. The development of the inter-imperialist contradiction has three levels and is developing in collusion and struggle.

 

- Collusion between the sole hegemonic imperialist superpower, the USA (the big dog) and the imperialist atomic superpower, Russia (the thin dog), is on the way to becoming predominant. This first level is being redefined.

 

- The imperialist powers of the EU and the US "partners" in NATO are in acute collusion and conflict with the US (second tier), due to their weakness and political, economic, and military dependence on Washington. They have no choice but to act as vassals and fall in line.

 

- Collusion and conflict between the imperialist powers of the EU and NATO, among themselves and with Russia, while they publicly express their conflict with Moscow and raise the "Putin threat" to their arms race.

 

In Germany, there is talk of the need for the EU to have its own nuclear umbrella, clarifying that it would be that of Macron's France, the only nuclear power in the EU, for the time being. However, by creating public opinion about its necessity, they are sowing the need to develop their own nuclear weapons ("nuclear deterrence").

 

In the discussion of the "government collision contract" between the CD-CSU and the SPD, they already agreed to reform the constitution (Bonn's Basic Law) regarding the debt limit. This "reform" was rejected by the CDU-CSU in the election campaign that just ended ten days ago, in order to convince their voters with the promise of maintaining the constitutional debt limit, so as not to burden future generations. Well, those were just empty campaign promises. It's one thing before the elections, and another thing after.

 

2. Ukraine's national resistance forces face the danger of capitulation. Ward off the danger of capitulation from Zelensky and his band of traitors who submit to the blackmail of the Yankee superpower and follow the advice of the "Western" imperialists.

 

Warding off the danger of capitulation demands that the forces of national resistance crush the "peace agreement" plans the imperialists are trying to impose on Ukraine, which are nothing more than agreements to partition the country, and therefore the calls for capitulation by Zelensky and his gang; continue the armed struggle of national resistance, relying on their own forces so as not to depend on anyone, so as not to be manipulated according to the interests of the imperialist superpower or powers.

 

Persisting in the armed struggle of national resistance to defend the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, in turn, demands transforming the current war from a regular, attritional war based on "foreign aid" into a harsh and protracted guerrilla war based primarily on their own forces. It is necessary to develop a broad and highly developed strategic guerrilla war. Unite all forces capable of being united on the front of armed resistance against the occupier and for the reunification of the country, against its partition into zones of influence, and divide the front of aggression. A Western observer predicts the following scenario in such a case:

 

“For Russia, this will be a cancer, and under the conditions of that cancer, all the contradictions covered up and prolonged by the war will resurface sooner or later.” (Rafael Poch-de-Feliu - The Year 2024: Gaza, Ukraine, and Eurasia in the Crisis of Western Decline. JHU-UPF Public Policy Center, web www.upf.edu/web/jhuppc)

 

3. The development of the bourgeoisie-proletariat contradiction in Russia and the war of aggression of Russian imperialism. In Ukraine and Russia, the task of merging the struggle of the oppressed nation with the class struggle of the workers of the oppressor nation to counter-restore socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat in both countries is particularly difficult and important.

 

It is incumbent upon the Russian proletariat, its most conscious elements, who are in favor of the reconstitution of Lenin and Stalin's Bolshevik Communist Party as a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party, to support with the greatest determination the most revolutionary elements of the Ukrainian national resistance movement.

 

The great Lenin, regarding the relationship between the national problem and the dissociation of the proletariat from the bourgeoisie, in a polemic against Bukharin, said:

 

“(...)I have to say the same thing about the national question. Here too the wish is father to the thought with Comrade Bukharin. He says that we must not recognise the right of nations to self-determination. A nation means the bourgeoisie together with the proletariat. And are we, the proletarians, to recognise the right to self-determination of the despised bourgeoisie? That is absolutely incompatible! Pardon me, it is compatible with what actually exists. If you eliminate this, the result will be sheer fantasy. You refer to the process of differentiation which is taking place within the nations, the process of separation of the proletariat from the bourgeoisie. But let us see how this differentiation will proceed.

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(...) Comrade Bukharin says, “Why do we need the right of nations to self-determination?” I must repeat what I said opposing him in the summer of 1917, when he proposed to delete the minimum programme and to leave only the maximum programme.[12] I then retorted, “Don’t halloo until you’re out of the wood.” When we have conquered power, and even then only after waiting a while, we shall do this.[13] We have conquered power, we have waited a while, and now I am willing to do it. 


The same applies to the right of nations to self-determination. “I want to recognise only the right of the working classes to self-determination,” says Comrade Bukharin. That is to say, you want to recognise something that has not been achieved in a single country except Russia. That is ridiculous.


Look at Finland; she is a democratic country, more developed, more cultured than we are. In Finland a process of separation, of the differentiation of the proletariat is taking a specific course, far more painful than was the case with us. The Finns have experienced the dictatorship of Germany; they are now experiencing the dictatorship of the Allied powers. But thanks to the fact that we have recognised the right of nations to self-determination, the process of differentiation has been facilitated there.

 

It is necessary to wait for the nation in question to develop and for the proletariat to dissociate itself from the bourgeois elements, which is inevitable.

 

Comrade Bukharin does not want to wait. He is overcome by impatience (...) but our Program must reflect reality with absolute precision. Then it will be indisputable.

We hold a strictly class standpoint. What we are writing in the programme is a recognition of what has actually taken place since the time we wrote of the self-determination of nations in general (...) . To go farther, one step farther, one hair’s breadth farther, would be wrong, and therefore unsuitable for a programme. 


We say that account must be taken of the stage reached by the given nation on its way from medievalism to bourgeois democracy, and from bourgeois democracy to proletarian democracy. That is absolutely correct. All nations have the right to self-determination (... )The vast majority, most likely nine-tenths of the population of the earth, perhaps 95 per cent, come under this description, since all countries are on the way from medievalism to bourgeois democracy or from bourgeois democracy to proletarian democracy. This is an absolutely inevitable course (...)More cannot be said, because it would be wrong, because it would not be what actually exists. To reject the self-determination of nations and insert the self-determination of the working people would be absolutely wrong, because this manner of settling the question does not reckon with the difficulties, with the zigzag course taken by differentiation within nations. 

 

Our Program should not speak of workers' self-determination, because that is erroneous. It must tell things as they are. Since nations are at different stages of the path from the medieval regime to bourgeois democracy, and from bourgeois to proletarian democracy, this thesis of our Program is absolutely correct. We have had numerous zigzags on this path.

 

Every nation must obtain the right to self-determination, and this contributes to the self-determination of workers (…)

 

Comrade Bukharin does not want to wait. He is possessed by impatience (...) but in the programme we must write just what actually exists with the greatest precision. And then our programme will be incontrovertible.e.

 

We hold a strictly class standpoint. What we are writing in the programme is a recognition of what has actually taken place since the time we wrote of the self-determination of nations in general. To go farther, one step farther, one hair’s breadth farther, would be wrong, and therefore unsuitable for a programme." (8th Congress of the RCP, Report on the Party Program, March 19, Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 138, p. 161 et seq.)

 

II

 

The Character of War

 

As war is the continuation of politics by other means:

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