Il Partito Comunista 420

(Report presented at the January 2023 general meeting)

The war in Ukraine is entering its twelfth month, and in that time, it has already amply demonstrated that it is not a war like the others that have been taking place, even for years, on the “periphery of the Empire”, from Yemen to Syria, from the Horn of Africa to sub-Saharan Africa, from Armenia to the Himalayan borders, where Indian and Chinese infantrymen are even fighting and killing each other with their bare hands.

It is a war in the heart of Europe, one of the world’s largest capitalist agglomerations, pitting two regular armies against each other, and the first conventional, high-intensity conflict fought on the European continent since the end of World War II.

The fighting takes place in ways not seen in decades, perhaps since the Korean War (1950-53) or the Iraq-Iran War (1980-88), and to which Western armies are no longer accustomed or prepared: intense and continuous artillery barrages, deployment of tens of thousands of fighters, extensive use of field fortifications with prolonged life in the trenches, ground air strikes, clashes between dozens of armoured vehicles, fierce struggles for control of urban centres, and high casualty rates among the units.

Prefiguring a new global imperialist confrontation

Hundreds of thousands of men have been mobilised on both sides, and casualties are now counted in the hundreds of thousands as well, obviously largely proletarian.

Clearly, in order to assess such a war, it is essential to take into account the global political and economic situation, the looming crisis pushing all bourgeois states toward a policy of rearmament and war.

In December 2022, we wrote “Since 2014, war had been brewing in Europe to give vent to imperialist tensions that walked hand in hand with recurring crises.” Ukraine has been an open wound for years and that is where the war originated based also, as is always the case, on contingent factors.

Not a war between Russia and Ukraine

The war must be placed in this economic and social climate.

It is true that Russia is now reduced to the rank of a middle power and is certainly not a superpower as the USSR might have been considered, or as the US or China are today; it is true that the Russian High Command has made errors of judgement and that the Armed Forces have shown not a few weaknesses, but it is certain that Ukraine has been able to hold out so far only thanks to the formidable and not disinterested help, both militarily and financially, of the US and secondarily of the other major Western powers whether part of NATO or not.

Only prompt outside help in arms, dollars, information, and trained soldiers enabled the Ukrainian state to keep hundreds of thousands of men at the front and to keep alive a population of a few tens of millions of proletarians even when exposed to the most severe deprivations.

The Ukrainian ruling class, the one that is conducting the war, deciding to resist the invasion, decided to sell its proletarians to NATO to wage war against Russia masking the operation with the lies of defending the country’s freedom and independence.

Who’s leading the game

After the recent decision by NATO and allies to supply German tanks to Ukraine, US President Joe Biden declared that the decision “is not a fight against Russia, but a fight for freedom.” He was echoed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who in a TV interview was keen to reiterate that “no, absolutely not”, Germany has not become a party to the war in Ukraine by delivering Leopard tanks to Kiev.

For his part, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said instead that NATO countries would now be co-belligerent: “Sending various weapons systems to Ukraine, including tanks… Moscow perceives this as direct involvement in the conflict”.

Imperialist on both fronts

Undoubtedly, this was an imperialist aggression of one bourgeois state against another bourgeois state. But we do not pass moral judgement on the war.

We communists do not claim, as the bourgeois philistines do, that every war of aggression is an “unjust” war and every “defensive” war is a just war. In the chaotic ruin of capitalism overwhelmed by its deadly crisis, local wars are a constant and general war an inescapable necessity that drags the bourgeois class and its giant states into its chasm. The aggressors are at once victims and executioners as much as the aggressed.

We claim, moreover, the possibility for the revolutionary socialist state to wage wars of aggression against bourgeois states, just as the Red Army did against Poland between 1919 and 1921, just as we have not failed to express appreciation also for the wars waged by the revolutionary bourgeoisie against the old feudal empires.

Our judgement on this war is therefore very clear: it is a war between imperialist states – and it is not relevant who is the aggressor and who is the aggressed – which pits a more powerful state, Russia, against a weaker state, Ukraine, with the latter, however, being supported by powerful allies, primarily the United States, Poland, and Britain.

In a 1938 essay, Trotsky rightly described Czechoslovakia as an imperialist state in that monopoly capital dominated there and other national minorities were oppressed. Both of these elements also characterise Ukraine today. Moreover, it is evident that Kiev has made itself an instrument of major powers interested in clashing with Russia.

It was once referred to, with reference to the states of Europe that fell under the USSR’s sphere of influence, as “states of limited sovereignty”. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, etc., were free to decide how to organise themselves internally but could not change their position in terms of international relations on pain of intervention by the Soviet Army.

With the fall of the USSR everything has changed for nothing has changed: these states have simply changed sides, but they have no real national independence, which is impossible for small nations at this stage of fetid imperialism. To save themselves from Russian influence they had to sell themselves to the United States or Germany, submit to Western imperialism, and become its instruments even in foreign policy.

Against the European bourgeoisies

The rupture of economic ties between Russia and Germany, as well as between Russia and the rest of Europe, the mothballing of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, for which the US was directly responsible, the embargo on Russian gas and oil, etc., have affected European economies perhaps even more than Russia’s. The Chinese economy has also been hit with the partial disruption of the transit route that used to unite Beijing and Berlin via Ukraine. This has largely benefited the US capitalists, especially in the energy sector, who are now exporting LPG to Europe at 4 times the cost of what came from Russia via pipelines, and the military industry that is doing a brisk business with supplies to Ukraine, but also to the other European states that will have to fill their depleted arsenals.

In reality, for the proletariat of both Ukraine and the Donbass, it is entirely indifferent whether their masters speak Russian or Ukrainian or are affiliated with one national band of capitalists or the other. The commodity labor power, like all commodities, has no homeland. Nor does capital, for that matter. Which, on both sides, would like to enslave the working class in military uniform to fight “to the last man”, to bleed in a long war, the partner but competitor in world trade.

Toward rearmament

The war has further accelerated the arms race in all the world’s most industrialized countries, starting with Germany, but also affecting France, Italy, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, and of course China and the United States. By now, the target of 2 percent of GDP spending on armaments that NATO sought to impose on the reluctant European states has been far surpassed by rearmament plans hastily approved under the pressure of war:

According to new data released by the US State Department, due to the war in Ukraine and tensions in the Indo-Pacific, arms deliveries totalled $51.9 billion, registering a 49 percent increase over 2021. Germany was the main buyer in Europe with a total of $8.4 billion; followed by Poland with $6 billion, mainly as a result of the August 2022 order for 250 M1 Abrams tanks.
(Limes, Jan. 26, 2023)

Capitalists in cahoots

We have repeatedly pointed out, both in our old and in our more recent assessments, that the cooperation between Moscow and Washington has never waned. For the US, Russia is not a competitor; on the contrary, it is mostly an ally, as we have seen in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, where the two powers have cooperated in their respective counterrevolutionary and anti-proletarian roles.

That is why the American bourgeoisie, through its state, maintains a permanent dialogue with the Kremlin. The US wants to wear down the Russian economy and its Armed Forces and contain the Russian attempt to expand westward, but it does not want Russia to collapse, because it is an important counterrevolutionary bastion which maintains bourgeois stability in Central Asia, and possesses an arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons, which it is necessary to keep under strict control.

Moreover, Western imperialism fears that a crisis in the current regime could trigger a social uprising of gigantic proportions on the borders of Europe.

It is therefore a matter for Washington to wear down and weaken Russia, but not to the breaking point.

What, then, might be the Pentagon’s policy? Perhaps to try to ensure that neither army can prevail, that mutual offensives fail, and that the conflict turns into a war of attrition, creating the conditions for a freeze in military operations and a subsequent cease-fire, of course disregarding what this may cost in terms of human and material losses for the proletariat of the two countries.

While the proletariat of Russia and Ukraine is bled dry on the front lines, the imperialist states continue undaunted in their race toward economic crisis and the abyss of world war.

In this tragic situation, as the European proletariat is delayed in regaining its class bearings, it is only to a Party that unconditionally takes the side of the proletarians, who “have no fatherland” and no flag, and is against bourgeois fatherlands and flags, it is only to this Party which in the storm of war does not lose sight of the goal of the international communist revolution, which is far and near at the same time, it is only to this Party, which is absolutely above and against all fighting parties, will leadership be given of the movement for the resumption of the revolutionary class struggle, when it ineluctably comes.

As the U.S. federal government and railroads try to avoid supply disruptions caused by an unruly workforce, another threat of chaos looms over the economy. The Mississippi River, the great artery of U.S. freight transportation, due to lack of rainfall has reached its lowest levels in 40 years, preventing barges from being drawn. Water levels in Memphis, Tennessee, a major logistics hub, are nearly 11 feet below average. The sailing time of a barge, the preferred mode of transportation for most agricultural products, from St. Louis, the main trading center on the river at the confluence of the Missouri River, to New Orleans, at the mouth of the great river on the Gulf of Mexico, has doubled.

Barges must be less loaded because of the reduced draft, nine feet compared to twelve in normal times and fourteen on the lower Mississippi. In addition, voyage times have increased greatly; a tug can push fewer barges because of the navigable width, reduced by low water: a typical convoy of 40 barges now pushes only 25. A standard barge loads 1,500 short tons, about 1,361 metric tons, for example 50,000 bushels of soybeans. Every foot less draft reduces the capacity of a barge by 150 to 200 short tons-a 25 to 30 percent reduction.

Army engineers in October began dredging the bottom and raised a berm of mud on the riverbed, which further restricted traffic: it was possible to travel along the Mississippi only during the day and in the berm area alternately one-way. More than 1,000 barges waited in line.

It is important for U.S. farms to ship their products to the international market while the southern hemisphere, particularly South America, is still in winter. The world’s largest soybean producer is Brazil, where the planting season begins in September. Beans are harvested on average after nearly 4 months. As Brazilian production arrives, prices begin to fall. This will result in reduced profits. In addition, the corn harvest is approaching, which will require new shipments.

The problem shows no sign of abating in the near future. Even if rainfall returns soon the dried up soil from the long drought would absorb most of it. Conversely, if the rain were too concentrated, the parched farmland would not have time for it to percolate from the surface, to feed the water tables and springs, and would be washed away.

The bourgeoisie, however, is unwilling to take any measures to mitigate this problem.

The big capitalist powers remain locked into fossil fuels, particularly petrochemicals, as a huge source of profits and rents.

From oil they get not only energy but chemicals for fertilizers. Warming caused by fossil fuel emissions, together with the disruption of the nitrogen cycle caused by overuse of fertilizers, has severely disrupted the natural climate cycles that sustain life on this planet.

The destruction of billions of dollars of capital invested in this sector is unthinkable; too much money is at stake.

Although everyone knows that negative carbon emissions and the restoration of the nitrogen cycle to facilitate the growth of plants, which capture carbon, are necessary to avoid catastrophe, the impassive bourgeoisie insists that we must produce and consume more and more goods. Only communist revolution can lead us off this dead-end course.