Thesis Paper: Theses about the Russian Imperialist War against Ukraine in the Context of the International Situation

Thesis 1: Reason and Character of the War
The Russian war against Ukraine is an imperialist war. It is a tactical offensive within the strategic defense of Russian imperialism, reacting to the military encirclement¹ by US-imperialism. For Russia the most threatening action of encirclement was the coup in Ukraine in 2014. After the government of Janukowytsch dared to decline the EU association agreement, the western imperialists revealed their true stance towards the right of nations to self-determination by removing the unwanted government. Now the right of Ukraine to self-determination is violated by the Russian occupation which aims to take away the Ukrainian territory and people from the economic and military interests of US imperialism and its imperialist allies and to secure it for its own military and economic purposes. The justified national war of the ukrainian people against the occupation is being instrumentalized as a proxy war against Russia by western imperialists complemented by sanctions that aim to destroy the military and economic power of Russia.

Thesis 2: The Inter-Imperialist Contradiction between the US and Russia
The US-imperialism wants to defend and expand its status as the hegemonic imperialist world power. For this purpose it wants to eliminate its only military rival in order to become even more independent in handling the contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations (Obama: “Russia is a regional power.”); and also to make sure Russia doesn’t become a useful ally to the ascending, at this moment in time primarily economic but soon also military rival China.² Whereas Russia, slowly recovering from the economic bankruptcy of the social-imperialist Soviet Union, wants to defend its role as an imperialist world power and tries to win Germany, the EU and China as its allies, after the US turned down a partnership.

a) The Economic and Military Power of the US
The US-bourgeoisie is the economically most potent imperialist world power. It has not only access to an enormous domestic market, natural resources, and a huge quantity of sufficiently qualified labour-power, it is also exporting its dollar-capital anywhere in the world and exploits sources of wealth abroad. To export its capital everywhere the US needs a military power that is able to defend US interests worldwide. Because the dollar is world currency and needed by every capitalist who wants to operate on the global market all capitalists are investing in the US, enabling it to borrow money from the whole world and finance its respective military power.³ By doing this the US has at its disposal military bases on every continent, an air force, a marine and an army that are able to wage three to five wars simultaneously anywhere in the world at any time and holds the second biggest arsenal of nuclear weaponry in the world.

b) The Economic and Military Power of Russia
Russia primarily exports natural resources and weapons. The Russian financial capital is mainly the merging of bank capital with industrial capital that produces armaments, or with industrial and commercial capital that produces and distributes natural resources.⁴ Therefore the Russian military power has a certain economic basis but it is build first and foremost on its soviet heritage. Besides the US, Russia is the only imperialist power which is able to wage war globally, independent from US-imperialism and against its interests. That means that Russia is a world power that is able to handle the contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations independently. For this reason Russia is, despite its economic weakness, at this moment the most important rival of US-imperialism.

Thesis 3: Contradictions inside the West
The US subordinates other imperialist countries like Germany, France and Great Britain to make use of their economic and military means. Whereas these countries expect of that subordination to the US consideration of their own interests in their common handling of the contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations and of imperialist rivals such as Russia or China. That does not negate the contradictions between the western imperialists. In their cooperation they stay rivals (“Fuck the EU!”, Nord Stream 2). Unlike the US, Germany has significant economic interests in Russia as a sales market and especially as an energy supplier.

Thesis 4: German Mobilization
German imperialism is using the escalation of the inter-imperialist contradiction with Russia as a justification for a massive armament to live up to their military role, intended for them by the US, controlling Eastern Europe, Northern Africa and West Asia. Furthermore they want to become more independent from the US and France, so that they can assert their interests better in the inter-imperialist contradictions within their alliance. This comes along with the attempt to establish a military consent so that the class struggle inside the FRG won’t become a problem when it tries to seize world power again. At the same time the opposition is actively maneuvered under antisemitic and reactionary leadership.

Thesis 5: The Position of the Communists Towards the Imperialist Russian War
Ukraine is the prey that Russian and western imperialists fight over. Western imperialists acknowledged Ukraine at least formally after their coup, because they were able to enforce their interests without any military force due to economic, military and political dependence of the Ukrainian comprador bourgeoisie. The Russian imperialism is currently breaking the right of Ukraine to self-determination with military force and became thereby the main enemy of the Ukrainian people. The rebellion of the Ukrainian people is justified even though it is taking place under bourgeois leadership. Proletarian internationalism does not consist in complaining about the bourgeois consciousness of the masses and the lacking existence of a Communist Party in Ukraine and Germany, but in raising the consciousness of the masses and in reconstituting the Communist Party. This is not done by rooting for one of the imperialists but by contributing to the ideological class struggle and by politicizing, mobilizing and organizing the masses. And especially it is not done by qualifying the slogan “Workers and oppressed peoples of all countries, unite!”. The fight for the right of the nations to self-determination will win nationally only through a new democratic or socialist revolution and internationally only through the proletarian world revolution. For that it has to be lead to this purpose and not be miserably rejected because it is not consistent enough.

Literature (german):

Der Sperling:

https://dersperling.noblogs.org/post/2022/03/06/zum-krieg-in-der-ukraine/

https://dersperling.noblogs.org/post/2023/01/19/der-imperialistische-krieg-russlands-gegen-die-ukraine-im-kontext-der-weltlage/

Lenin:

https://www.marxists.org/deutsch/archiv/lenin/1917/imp/

https://www.marxists.org/deutsch/archiv/lenin/1915/krieg/kap1.htm

https://www.marxists.org/deutsch/archiv/lenin/1916/01/nationen.html