Remarks at a conference on the Russia/Ukraine war

The following remarks were delivered by a BT supporter on Sunday 26th June at a conference on the Russia/Ukraine war held by the Christian Rakovsky International Socialist Center. An audio recording of this presentation is also available.

We would like to begin by thanking the comrades who initiated this event and invited us to participate.

We are one of very few groups claiming the mantle of Trotskyism which favour a Russian military victory over the US/NATO and its Ukrainian proxy. Russia is not an imperialist power—and for decades it has been threatened by the NATO imperialist alliance. While many tendencies on the left wing of contemporary ostensible Trotskyism are prepared to call for the defeat of the US/NATO/Ukraine coalition, few are prepared to take sides. Most tend to treat the two combatants as qualitatively similar.

We do not shrink from stating clearly that a Russian military victory would be in the interests of the world’s workers and oppressed—despite the fact that the Putin regime is politically and socially reactionary. The fundamental issue in this conflict is Russia’s right to resist imperialist encroachment—strategically Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is essentially defensive.

These events are unfolding against the background of an accelerating erosion of US global hegemony—it is clear that we are very close to the end of the “American Century.” Joe Biden’s prediction that imperialist sanctions would turn the ruble into “rubble” has backfired dramatically. The US and its NATO allies, particularly Germany, are becoming painfully aware of the disastrous implications of boycotting Russian energy and raw materials. Inflation is surging and social tensions are rising in both North America and Western Europe, and the stage is set for potentially explosive class struggles.

As the centre of gravity of the US economy shifted from industry to finance during the past several decades, the Chinese deformed workers’ state emerged as the “workshop of the world.” The opening of the capitalist world market to China, symbolised by its accession to the WTO in 2001, was intended to create momentum for capitalist restoration which would undo the gains of the social revolution of 1949 led by Mao Zedong. At the same time, offshoring production to China was supposed to offset the growing profitability crisis, weaken the workers’ movement and lay the basis for transforming China into an exploitable neo-colony. But that is not how things have worked out.

NATO’s incorporation of most former Warsaw Pact countries underlies the current conflict. The longstanding US objective of breaking Russia up into several smaller, easily controlled pieces and appropriating its resources, which was spelled out by Dick Cheney, former US vice president, has been endorsed by many important players in the US foreign policy establishment.

There have been some dissidents—the most notable being Henry Kissinger—who advocate finding a modus vivendi with Russia, in order to isolate China. But the dominant faction of the US ruling class, with the acquiescence, if not enthusiasm, of Germany, France and other European allies, has opted for pressuring Russia while also going after China.

Some wretched reformists, like the French NPA, have more or less openly sided with the Ukraine/NATO axis. Other tendencies have exhibited a combination of confusion and political cowardice. Some who mistakenly consider Russia to be imperialist have taken a dual defeatist position. Others who recognise that Russia is not imperialist nonetheless refuse to take sides against NATO and its Ukrainian proxy—variations of this position are held by David North’s WSWS, the Trotskyist Fraction, the Spartacist League and the Internationalist Group in the U.S. The IG and SL appear to view the conflict as essentially involving two dependent capitalist countries—Russia and Ukraine. In our view those who deny that Ukraine is acting essentially as an imperialist proxy, and refuse to defend Russia against NATO, have no claim to stand in the Bolshevik-Leninist tradition.

We note that the 30 April statement of the Christian Rakovsky Centre does not explicitly state that you side militarily with Russia in this conflict. Nor do any of your other materials, as far as we have seen. Without giving Putin’s reactionary bonapartist regime one inch of political support, Marxists recognise that a Russian victory will weaken the US/NATO imperialist axis and complicate future military aggression against the Chinese deformed workers’ state and others on the US hit list; conversely a victory by NATO’s Ukrainian proxy would encourage further aggression.

We support the strikes by Greek and Italian workers against NATO weapons shipments to Ukraine, while opposing similar actions by Belarusian workers seeking to block Russian armaments. The chaos and bloody military aggression spawned by global imperialism can only be ended by world socialist revolution. That requires the construction of a revolutionary workers’ party on an international scale—we hope that this conference may turn out to have represented a small step in that direction.