The Russian attack of February 24th rightly causes confusion and questions, not (of course) about the devastation of war or the value of peace, but about the attitude that the Left, the progressive and democratic movement, in our country and internationally, should take. In this effort, there is enormous value, for someone who takes the side of the subversion movement, in insisting on ideological and political and not merely emotional, abstract or rounded criteria.
Thesis one: those who took seven years to understand that there is a war going on, cannot talk about peace today.
The Russian offensive is an upgraded link in the chain of conflict and unrest that begins at least as far back as 2014, with the overthrow of Yanukovych’s pro-Russian government. Since then, some 14,000 people (civilians, not soldiers) have lost their lives, tens of thousands have been displaced, hundreds of women have been raped, antifascists have been murdered, trade unionists have been burned alive. Just three days ago, areas of Ukraine were being bombed by the Ukrainian state.
The victims of the previous period came almost exclusively from the Russian-speaking populations of eastern Ukraine, with the Kiev regime and the far-right paramilitary groups, that wear the swastika and fly the NATO flag, as the perpetrators. The prolonged and sustained attack on part of the Ukrainian people was of an ethnic (elements of ethnic cleansing) and political-ideological (far-right, pro-Nazi) nature. The process that could have prevented the further aggravation of the crisis (the Minsk Agreement) was blown up, first and foremost by the Ukrainian government itself.
The aforementioned, does not constitute a pro-Russian reading of recent Ukrainian history, but rather commonplace for those who want to be honest with themselves. Today, after a celebration, even the most pro-Western will admit that ‘Kiev went too far’.
So, the Russian offensive is not being carried out in a vacuum of history, it is an upgraded military link in an already existing chain of conflict. The deaths, the uprooting of populations, the bombing of territories, the devastation and destruction did not occur in Ukraine in the last 24 hours. For a significant part of its population, it has been a daily occurrence (and on a much larger order of magnitude) for the last seven years.
Thesis two: NATO’s sustained expansion eastward was objectively an act of aggression against Russia.
The stakes of the Ukrainian crisis are not only, or mainly, internal conflict. Russia did not invade Ukraine simply to protect the Russian-speaking populations, nor to punish the right-wing extremists who bloodied Odessa. The crucial element is the NATO encirclement of Russia.
In the 1990s, the dissolution of the Soviet Union inevitably led to the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, in explicit exchange for NATO not expanding eastwards. Ten years ago, from 1999, NATO changed its strategy, deciding to expand to the maximum extent possible, with a special preference for the integration of former Soviet republics, encircling Russia. Baltic republics, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, became an enclosed zone with US bases and missiles tightening the cordon menacingly.
This uncontrolled expansion, beyond any constitutional reason for the existence of NATO itself, and against the agreements of the previous decade (until 2000, Russia’s own membership in NATO was being discussed), was not enough. The grip had to be tightened further. Biden’s election itself signaled that US foreign policy would shift its weight against Russia. It ended the Trump era, that preimmunized rivalry with China, in the context of defending US domestic economic interests.
Post-Soviet Russia remained for decades as the successor “evil empire” for the US and Western propaganda, seeing the North Atlantic alliance as, not merely elevating it to its number one enemy, but taking up positions, setting up bases, anti-aircraft systems, missile installations around its borders, slowly incorporating one country after another, with Ukraine as the crown jewel in the crown of NATO’s expansion.
But the Russia of 2020 is not the Russia of 1998. Its capitalist class has been restructured, its political staff no longer resembles a circus (with a permanently drunken clown), energy flows to Europe have made it stronger, and in any case, it remains a military superpower with a nuclear arsenal. The relative retreat of the US, the internal contradictions of the American superpower, the emergence of China, the EU crisis, give space and increase Russia’s confidence. Since the 2014 crisis, it has been shielded by knowing that sanctions against it will be on the agenda of the Euro-Atlantic axis.
Thesis three: NATO is the instigator of the war.
Every action brings a reaction. How does one expect Russia to react when yet another act of NATO expansion unfolds? What does one expect to happen between a Russia that is willing to pay a heavy price to end its suffocating encirclement, and the US, which wants to encircle it, but is putting a foreign head in the sand? The organisation of Maidan, by the US and the EU, was the first act of the conflict, the pogroms in Eastern Ukraine were the escalation, and the accession to NATO by arming a Ukraine – now openly hostile to Russia – was the climax.
When one military superpower is threatened by another, it will react. When it puts the gun on the table, it has decided that it will use it. Having prepared for it for years, Russia decided that it was in a position to pay a high price to prevent its complete encirclement by NATO and the definitive inclusion of Ukraine in the anti-Russian camp. A price much higher than the sanctions, which will probably be largely ineffective, although that remains to be seen in the coming months.
If this is the case, is it Russia’s fault for reacting but not NATO’s fault for encircling? Is it Russia’s fault that Russia is intervening militarily, but not the Euro-Atlantic (and far-right) oriented leadership in Kiev, that has caused hundreds of bombs with multiple numbers of murdered, displaced, tortured and terrorized civilians? Are they both to blame? And if so, is there no difference?
Those who raise the safe question, of whether or not Ukraine has the right to join NATO and choose its allies, have swallowed whole the question of whether or not it makes sense for NATO to exist, when the reasons for its existence have disappeared. Even more, they do not answer whether it is legitimate, moral, rational and peaceful to suffocate a nuclear superpower, which has, in fact been demonised in every possible way.
Thesis four: The Ukrainian government has proven itself to be the useful idiot, showing what it means to be taken for granted and always willing
The attitude of the West after the Russian attack leaves the Ukrainian government hanging. It used it for the NATO encirclement of Russia, gave it assurances, patted the Nazi paramilitary battalions, laughed under its whiskers at the pogroms against anti-fascists and dissidents. Moroever, was happy to see the Minsk Agreement collapse, reinforced Ukraine militarily to clear its eastern Russian-speaking regions, assured it that it would stand by its side as long as Kiev remained faithful to the ambitions of the Euro-Atlantic axis. And when Russia attacked, the West made statements of support, launched a marathon search for “sanctions” (of dubious effectiveness since Moscow has been trying to prepare itself against such a highly anticipated Western measure since 2014), and assured that … NATO would not send troops to Ukraine. The Kiev regime did the dirty work with the consent, support and guidance of the West, but when push came to shove, it was left alone. Besides, even if Russia risked a nuclear incident to secure its “vital space” or even a security zone, the West would not risk something similar to deprive them of doing so.
The example of Ukraine is particularly relevant, because Greece may have more deterrent power than Ukraine and Turkey much less than Russia, but the assurances of Euro-Atlanticists in our country, that the US will protect us against Erdogan and his ambitions, because we are their most loyal, given and willing allies, is a theory that has gone bankrupt in live broadcast around the world.
Thesis five: Equal distances are never equal. They favor the one who is currently stronger.
If we agree that Russia’s attack on Ukraine has only as a pretext the security of Russian-speakers or the restoration of justice for Kiev’s crimes in Donbass and Odessa, we will recognize the real reason for the invasion as avoiding NATO’s encirclement. Russia’s war in Ukraine is obviously not a humanitarian intervention. Nor does it fall into the Leninist category of “righteous wars”, even if the cleansing of Russian-speaking populations in Ukraine gives Russia ample arguments. But for an imperialist power like Russia, with a reactionary regime like Putin’s, to maintain a vital security space around its borders (with all the repulsive historical baggage of the term), is not a moral justification for war, nor can it motivate progressive people and the leftist movement.
Ukraine may be the theatre of operations of the confrontation, but the conflict involves much more. On the one hand, we have Russia avoiding encirclement and creating vital space around its borders, but on the other hand, we do not just have the far-right jester in Kiev and the paramilitary gangs of Ukrainian Nazis. We have the West’s plan to dominate universally, to corner its nuclear rival, to make NATO a vast US military machine, in other words to impose a depressing one-way street with no alternative. This demand, ambition, or project of “universal domination” is even evolving at a time when objectively more poles of global hegemony are emerging, not just one.
The demand for universal domination and the unbridled expansion of NATO has been advanced and imposed, and not only ‘peacefully’, by political changes, by demonstrations (or coups) and by elections. It also proceeded with persecutions, and pogroms, and massacres. The question is whether it is reasonable (or even fair) to “consolidate” the “fait accompli” of NATO expansion, with a bloody peace in perpetuity, like the one that existed before the Russian attack. The dilemma is cynical, but it is a real dilemma: bloody peace with multiple casualties, consolidating American interests, or Russian war?
This brings us to the problem of equidistance. Equal distances are never equal, because the conflict is not just about two imperialist powers clashing with each other. The conflict is between an imperialist alliance that has reached outside the borders of an economically, politically and militarily inferior secondary imperialist power, with the latter seeking security conditions and zones of living space. Condemning Russian intervention means accepting the fait accompli that NATO has brought to Eastern Europe. This is a reasonable position for the Greek bourgeoisie, but not at all reasonable for the Greek Left.
Equal distances in real life rarely exist. The West-Russia conflict has little in common with the conflict of the First World War to copy the quotes of 1915. It is one thing to not join any imperialist camp (a position that is absolutely true then and now), and another thing to evaluate the response of cornered Russian imperialism in the same way, with the promiscuity and aggression of American imperialism. Same hierarchy and equal distances favor the one who has the upper hand in the conflict. And that, for the last thirty years at least, has clearly been the West. Let us not appeal either to the number and location of American bases on the planet or to NATO’s criminal history. Nor do we ask to imagine what would happen if Russia or China were to set up bases on the Mexican border with the United States. We are simply appealing to common sense.
Thesis six: defeat the project of the most dangerous enemy of peace. Even if it is defeated by someone who is not our friend.
The Russian attack, whether we like it or not, is the first time in thirty years that it has blocked NATO impunity. We may not like whoever is doing it, but reality does not move according to our wishes. There is no socialist camp to stop the imperialist havoc and at the same time make way for the movement of social liberation. Our positioning is based on reality.
If NATO is the most dangerous enemy of peace, if it is by far the most murderous machine since the Second World War, if it has violated every concept of international law, if it has dismembered countries, overthrown governments, bombed civilians, set up juntas and dismantled societies, suffering a defeat is not progressive?
We understand that those who served and serve the Euro-Atlantic orientation of the country, from the right or the left, are resentful of the temporary blocking of the NATO machine. But we do not understand why those who, for years, for decades, considered NATO to be the greatest danger to peace, the greatest threat to peoples and their liberation movements, should resent with this.
The Russian attack has put a brake on an option (enlargement in Eastern Europe and encirclement of Russia), which the Euro-Atlantic leadership was behind. And a number of countries see that US-NATO designs are not invincible, nor are Washington’s ambitions inevitable. Of course, this is merely a necessary, and by no means a sufficient condition for the rise of the adversary to capitalism.
Is it not important, at least for forces that refer to Marxism (and even more so to Leninism), to evaluate as important the retreat of the most dangerous enemy of the peoples, their freedom and their independence, American imperialism? Isn’t it important to slap the production machine of far-right, neo-Nazi formations in Eastern Europe that fly EU flags and call for their countries to join NATO?
Is it not deeply political and utterly Leninist to seek to weaken the strongest opponent of the peoples and working classes at any given time, even if that weakening does not come from you?
The war in Ukraine is an important episode in the process of transformation of the world of the twentieth century inherited from the twenty-first: From a planet with a single dominant power, the United States, to a multipolar situation where other powerful global players and major regional powers are emerging, with increased contradictions and different interests.
Do the peoples of the whole world and the working classes have more to gain from a unipolar world, dominated by the one-way street, or from a multipolar world, albeit with opposing reactionary imperialist powers, but where their contradictions can give space and breath to the movement for social liberation?
Confusion abounds on the left and everyone can pull from the classics what suits them. However, Marxism has nothing to do with keeping an absolutely equal distance from the foreign opposing camps, as if doing homework on paper. The complete opposite. It prefers the weakening of the most dangerous opponent at any given time for the peoples and working classes, even if this weakening is not by a communist or progressive force, but by a reactionary and imperialist force. The brightest pages in the history of the movement were written when the communists decided that they would not make a tape to measure equal distances in their announcements, but to exploit every crack in the opposing camp, by weakening the most dangerous opponent at any given time. This is a far cry from the convenience of “neither with NATO nor with Putin” and of course does not lead to an alignment with the Kremlin.
If this is strategic small print, it is worth going a step further: how does one on the communist left imagine NATO will be dismantled (a position hopefully still common – and not under revocation)? How can it be magically dissolved (and only under the blows of the communist movement), without defeats and scratches, without crises and retreats in its competition with other imperialist powers? Will NATO be dismantled only after the “world socialist revolution”, or is it a political goal with value, today and tomorrow?
Thesis seven: There is no peace without justice – or: history is shaped by the balance of power.
Peace is a priceless value, but there is peace that stops warmongers, arsonists, those dangerous to life and human civilisation, and peace that consolidates fait accompli and correlations imposed at gunpoint. The history of the left movement was identified with pacifism and denuclearisation in the 20th century, when the Americans were everywhere staging interventions against national liberation and progressive movements and threatening with their nuclear supremacy. Back then, peace activists were at the same time “agents of Moscow” for the Western propaganda apparatus.
In the full knowledge that we will not be popular, we must remember that there is also an unjust peace, a peace signed after an aggressive intervention, a peace that enshrines an unjust relationship, a peace that exists only to provoke a bigger war, a peace that has more victims, dead and uprooted than a “normal” war. The twentieth century is full of such examples.
Would those who today are shouting for peace in Ukraine, in 1963 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, have been shouting for peace? Would they have accused Kennedy of being a lunatic threatening nuclear war because Cuba – an independent country – decided to arm itself with Soviet missiles? Or would they justify the US nuclear threat by saying that there can’t be Soviet nuclear warheads within spitting distance of American soil? Of course, the reverse is also true.
The demand for peace always expresses a compromise between the warring powers. Pacifism, in the sense of appealing to the value of peace in a world slaughtered by conflict and antagonism, overlooks the fact that any peace reflects a balance of power. So let us deal with precisely this balance of power and how it can be improved for peoples and working classes.
Thesis eight: It is a matter of survival for the peoples to form their own camp
The conflict in Ukraine lacks the independent and autonomous voice of the peoples and their interests. But, not only the conflict in Ukraine. The world, from the last quarter of the twentieth century onwards, has been negatively defined by the deafening absence of the communist movement. Capitalism and imperialism feel no threat to their existence, apart from inherent contradictions, intrinsic crises and internal antagonisms. It is important for the anti-war and anti-imperialist space today to constitute itself as a deterrent political movement against war and the policies that cause it. This is the only guarantee that the voice of the peoples will find its own independent expression and walk the road of social subversion.
History, in the final analysis and on its grand scale, continues to be written by the class struggle in all the complexity of its expressions. Its retreat creates limits, confusion, disorientation. It generates apolitical attitudes, a search for “clear” solutions, a withdrawal from the field of everyday struggle for a change in the national, European and global balance of power. The communist left remains disjointed and in weakness, regressing between the liberalism of individual rights and revolutionary chatter, unable to get its hands dirty and clean its vision.
The constitution of the independent voice of the popular camp is a precondition for survival, regardless of the turns in international developments and regardless the correlation of power concerning the objective conditions of the class struggle. Regardless of whether the Russian offensive delays, blocks, (or conversely accelerates), the NATO plans, the defeat of imperialism is the task of the independent movement of the peoples, which will write on its flags the demand for social liberation.
Η ΠΑΡΕΜΒΑΣΗ είναι πολιτική οργάνωση της Κομμουνιστικής Αριστεράς.