US and Russian Imperialists on Collision Course in Ukraine
“The situation in Ukraine looks like it will be a confrontation. Europe will lose more than Russia,” said a friend.
US propaganda blames Russia (mainly Putin). Russian propaganda blames US imperialism and its allies, mainly Biden and the Ukrainian president.
But this confrontation is not about personalities. It results directly from the laws of development of the worldwide capitalist profit system. Capitalists can only produce profits by exploiting the working class. Profits can only be realized by selling the worker-produced goods on the market.
Capitalists who can corner the market by underselling their competitors will maximize their profits. They eventually drive their competitors out of business. No capitalists accept their demise peacefully. They therefore compete fiercely for the cheapest labor, natural resources, and markets. Internationally, this competition inevitably leads to local, regional, and world wars.
The US-Russia struggle over Ukraine is about world domination. The capitalists-imperialists who dominate the world maximize their profits at the expense of other capitalists-imperialists.
Both sides are mobilizing naval and air forces. Russia is refusing to allow further NATO expansion in Eastern Europe or the placement of US nuclear missiles on its doorstep. Neither the US nor NATO will agree to Russia’s demands.
Right now (Jan. 26) it appears that Russia will move into Ukraine. Neither the US nor NATO are prepared to send troops to defend Ukraine. Any temporary negotiation to avoid a showdown would just postpone the storms to come as a rising China and resurgent Russia intensify their challenges to US world domination.
The outcome will be decided on the battlefields of World War III. Or – better! – by the international working class making communist revolution before or during this global conflagration.
This sharpening US-Russia confrontation has exposed divisions between the European and US capitalists. France and Germany rely on Russia for gas and oil. They do not want to go to war against Russia in the interests of US imperialism and have refused to commit troops to Ukraine. They send troops elsewhere with their own European Union military presence and goals in mind.
The UK, like the US, is arming Ukraine. But the German government refused to allow the UK to use its air space for arms shipments to Ukraine.
Capitalism’s nature makes wars and world wars inevitable. But capitalists rely on workers to fight their wars and produce their profits. The working class can and will fight for our own interests. Workers and soldiers have no reason to side with any capitalist-imperialist in their deadly wars for profit and empire. We must fight for our class. We need a communist world without nations, profits, exploitation, competition, or war.
As imperialist contradictions intensify, ICWP organizes workers, youth, and soldiers to join us to end capitalist competition and wars and to build the collective communist world we need.
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