War in Ukraine: Workers Have No Country!

Heightened threat of Open Russia/US-NATO War

October 3— Does anything surpass the hypocrisy of US imperialist complaints about the Russian imperialist annexation of eastern Ukraine? The entire USA exists on territory grabbed from Indigenous people or bought from European powers that had stolen it first!

Compare Russia’s recent territorial grab with the US annexation of Texas in 1845, consolidated after defeating Mexico in war. Or with the US forcible annexation of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1898.

No workers should side with any capitalist-imperialist power in the proxy war in Ukraine. Instead, organize the international working class for communist revolution.

Empires existed before capitalism. But the emergence of merchant capitalism and banking in 16th-century Europe changed things qualitatively. Capitalism’s “grow or die” imperative launched European rulers into a fierce competition to control the world’s labor, resources, and markets. Their trade in African lives underpinned an increasingly integrated world economy. With that arose an international working class.

By the 20th century, few Indigenous societies anywhere escaped this imperialist system. Imperialists could now only expand by grabbing from one another. World wars became inevitable. A rising communist-led movement struggled to prepare soldiers, sailors, and industrial workers to turn imperialist war into revolution.

But twentieth-century communists – including the Russian Bolsheviks—made some bad choices. Their Socialist republics kept core elements of a capitalist economy – notably, wage labor and markets. The party bureaucrats who managed this system became a new capitalist class.

During World War II, the Soviet-led movement didn’t urge workers again to communist revolution. Instead, it built illusions in “lesser-evil” imperialists. Those included British rulers whose wartime colonial policies caused the 1943 Bengal famine. And US rulers who segregated their military and did nothing to prevent the lynching of returning Black soldiers.

After the war, the capitalist Soviet Union became a rising imperial power. Today Putin openly works to restore the “Imperial Russia” of the tsars.

There are no “lesser-evil” imperialists or capitalists.

Every ruling class uses nationalism (patriotism) to persuade the workers it exploits to support their oppressors. Politicians wave national flags, schools play national anthems, clergy pray for “our country.”

Zelenskyy urges the Ukrainian masses to “defend our borders.”  Putin tells Russian workers and youth to “defend our motherland.”  In the US, Republicans want to “Make America Great Again” and Democrats beg us daily to “protect our democracy.”

But workers have no country! None of that is ours!

Our international working class has a common interest in overthrowing capitalist wage slavery everywhere. We will live “in communism,” not in some country with borders. All will contribute as they can and will. Together we will meet the needs of all. Everyone will be welcome everywhere.

The International Communist Workers’ Party today struggles to break the chains of nationalism, racism, sexism, and xenophobia. To prepare soldiers, sailors, and industrial workers to turn imperialist war into communist revolution.

Drumbeats of Widening War

Russia announced its annexation of four Ukrainian provinces after a “referendum” supervised by armed soldiers. They collected ballots door to door from people already under bombardment. Russia is drafting “Ukrainians” who are now “Russians” into the Russian army. Whether Russia can hold the annexed land will be decided on the battlefield.

The US and Albania proposed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the annexation. It was vetoed by Russia, while Russia’s sometime allies (Brazil, China, India) abstained. But head-on imperialist collisions can’t be avoided through diplomacy.

The US military is organizing a new command to lead its proxy war in Ukraine. Ukraine’s pro-US government petitioned to accelerate the process of joining NATO. This would put NATO weaponry on Russia’s doorstep. The Chinese imperialists have warned the US of the danger in this.

On September 30, two explosions sabotaged the Russian-controlled Nord Stream gas pipelines supplying Europe. Whoever did it, this is a clear escalation that is increasing fears in western Europe.

Russia is conscripting hundreds of thousands of troops, mainly from rural ethnic-minority areas but also anti-war protesters in the cities. Putin pointedly mentioned the nuclear bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Japan) to justify Russia’s potential use of its nuclear arsenal in a broader war.

In Russia (and probably Ukraine) both opposition to the war and open patriotism have grown. But neither draft-dodging nor pacifist protests can end imperialist war. And patriotic rallies can’t solve the economic crisis that is hitting Russian workers hard.

Some Russian soldiers in Ukraine are disgruntled, according to phone conversations intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence. They are exposing command failures and disputing official propaganda. In this situation, revolutionary communists inside the military would have a huge opportunity to recruit others to fight for the working class, not for the brass,

That happened in Russia in 1917. Bolshevik soldiers and sailors won masses of their comrades to ally with workers in armed revolutionary struggle. But there is no party in Ukraine or Russia today to lead communist revolution, the only force that can defeat capitalist imperialism. We must do everything in our power to build that party everywhere.

Read the ICWP Pamphlet:

“Soldiers, Sailors, Marines: Crucial to a Communist Workers’ Revolution” 

available here

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