Over the last 30 years, since the fall of the USSR, and its satellite states, in Eastern Europe, NATO imperialism has moved ever Eastwards, despite the assurances it would not do so. The CIA has openly admitted pumping billions of dollars into support for various groups in Eastern Europe, so as to encourage the so called “colour revolutions”, and install governments friendly to NATO, and US imperialism, in particular. As, Open Democracy note, nowhere did such US intervention to produce "democratic" regimes occur, where it was not to US advantage, and the US had many undemocratic allies, where it sought no such change. The US, has formed alliances with dictatorships across the so called “stans” of Central Asia, and, in return, has been allowed to station thousands of its troops there, along with masses of armaments. To complete this picture of NATO expansionism, and encirclement of Russia, the US has also developed its nuclear defence shield, also positioned in Eastern Europe, that enables it to shoot down Russian ICBM's while they are still over Europe, allowing the US to fire its nuclear weapons into Russia, free from any risk of equivalent retaliation. But, we are expected to believe the NATO line that it is purely a “defensive” alliance!
What is more, in recent months, NATO has sent thousands more of its troops to sit menacingly on Russia's Western and Southern borders, sending with them tons of the latest military hardware. Yet, they continue to insist that this is the action purely of a “defensive” alliance. All the time, the only thing they can point to as an equivalent on the part of Russia, is that it has sent a hundred thousand of its own troops to those same borders, in response to this NATO show of force on the other side, and that it has supported irregular forces in Eastern Ukraine, who have been fighting alongside Ukrainian forces that have been resisting attacks by Ukrainian fascist gangs sent in from Western Ukraine.
All the while, NATO, and its imperialist member states have engaged in a massive global propaganda campaign against Russia, with all of the usual accompaniment seen prior, for example, to the Gulf War, about imminent dangers of invasion and so on. Then it was that Saddam Hussein had masses of WMD ready to be unleashed within 20 minutes, all of which was a ridiculous fabrication that even the late Colin Powell has later admitted feeling embarrassed to have fronted up. For the last few weeks, we have been told that Russia was poised to imminently invade Ukraine, but no such invasion occurred. We were given the most lurid, detailed accounts of how Russia was about to install its own puppet government in Kyiv, but it was all a fantasy.
The trouble is that all such activity has a terrible tendency to end in wars that neither, on each side, really want. Sabre rattling, and gun boat diplomacy have always been used by imperialist bullies to try to get their own way by forcing the other side to back down. When they are bullying some weaker state that usually works, but when it is a matter of two more or less equally matched states or blocs confronting each other, those calculations cease to operate. And, in any case, when those states own masses of nuclear weapons the whole basis of calculation goes out the window, because even a weak state, economically, is put on a more or less equal par, when it can fire off sufficient nuclear weapons, if it is losing on the basis of conventional weapons, or simply if it suspects it needs to get in the first strike. NATO imperialism, by sending these thousands of troops half way across the globe to sit aggressively on Russia's borders is threatening the future of humanity in a nuclear war.
NATO says it is a “defensive” alliance, but surely a defensive alliance would keep all of its military forces to defend the borders of its own countries, not send them thousands of miles away to invade other countries, or to sit menacingly on the borders of other countries, which is precisely what NATO is doing. Its not Russia with thousands of troops stationed in Mexico, or Cuba, or sitting in an armada in the English Channel! NATO present it as Russia with thousands of troops on the Ukrainian border, but fail to notice that that border is also the Russian border, and so far, the Russian troops are on the Russian side of it, defending it against what most Russians must see as a growing military threat to them from NATO.
Even if any war was kept within the bounds of conventional weapons which seems impossible to achieve, the first casualties of it, are going to be ordinary working class troops sent to fight not to defend Britain, or France or Germany, but to defend Ukraine. The workers of Britain, France, Germany, and the US have no reason to send their sons, and they are almost exclusively sons on the front lines, to die in such a venture, any more than they did in the run up to World War I, the features of which are remarkably similar to those being created today. We should demand of our government, “Bring The Boys Home, The Main Enemy Is At Home”. That was the message that socialists sent out before World War I. The demand for “self-determination”, is really a demand of social-chauvinists for “defence of the fatherland”, as Lenin set out long ago. Liberals use that slogan as cover for bourgeois defencism, which means forming a Popular Front with your own ruling class, the consequence of which can only result in an imperialist war between the contending parties.
As Lenin describes, the slogan of “self-determination” was never intended to be used by those even within an oppressed state, let alone by an imperialist state. Lenin explains that socialists in imperialist, or oppressing states, should raise the demand for self-determination, in relation to the states being oppressed by them, solely in order to separate themselves from their own ruling class in the eyes of the masses in the oppressed state. It is to say to those masses, we are not like our ruling class, we want you to remain with us, but to demonstrate that we do not wish to oppress you, we emphasise your right to separate. In reality, therefore, what this amounted to was not a right for self-determination, but a right for oppressed and annexed states to separate. As Lenin put it,
“Instead of the word self-determination, which has given rise to numerous misinterpretations, I propose the perfectly precise concept: "the right to free secession".
And, to emphasise that point, Lenin makes clear that for the socialists in the oppressed or annexed country, their duty also was not to argue for separation or self-determination, which means separating themselves from the workers in the oppressing state, but was to argue for the greatest unity with those workers, on the basis of a continued voluntary association of the two states.
“People who have not gone into the question thoroughly think that it is “contradictory” for the Social-Democrats of oppressor nations to insist on the “freedom to secede”, while Social-Democrats of oppressed nations insist on the “freedom to integrate”. However, a little reflection will show that there is not, and cannot be, any other road to internationalism and the amalgamation of nations, any other road from the given situation to this goal.”
It is why, Marxists oppose Brexit, or Scottish independence for example, and yet, whilst arguing against, for example, Scottish independence, Marxists in England would emphasise the right of Scotland to do so, were it to so choose. There is no reason why Marxists in Ukraine would argue for voluntary association with Russia at the present time, especially given the past relationship of the two, but there is every reason why they would argue for Ukraine to enter into such voluntary arrangements with others in the region, rather than looking to either Russian or NATO imperialism as a solution to their problems, which is only likely to lead to further conflict, and the use of Ukraine as a political football. As Trotsky wrote, in relation to the Balkan Wars, in opposing the liberal interventionists who sought to poke their nose militarily into Balkan affairs under cover of “democratic” opposition to Ottoman oppression,
“Petersburg's diplomacy has no business in the Balkans, and the Balkan peoples can expect nothing to their advantage from the diplomatic chancelleries of Petersburg. The peoples of the Near East must organise a democratic federation on their territory, on principles of independence from both Russia and Austria-Hungary.
This standpoint unites us closely both with you and with the fraternal parties in the Balkans, whose fight against local dynastic and militarist reaction will be the more rewarding and successful the more vigorously and uncompromisingly we wage our struggle against any and every interference by the Great powers in Balkan affairs.”
(Trotsky Writings On The Balkan Wars, p 319-20)
Indeed, as Trotsky argues, workers can only look to themselves, and their own fraternal relations across borders, when it comes to resolving such conflicts, not to this or that camp of imperialist robbers, whether they operate under the mask of democracy or dictatorship. The working-class cannot subcontract its historic tasks to the bourgeoisie or its state.
“Democracy has no right, political or moral, to entrust the organisation of the Balkan peoples to forces that are outside its control – for it is not known when and where these forces will stop, and democracy, having once granted them the mandate of its political confidence, will be unable to check them...
But it is not at all a matter of indifference by what methods this emancipation is being accomplished. The method of “liberation” that is being followed today means the enslavement of Macedonia to the personal regime in Bulgaria and to Bulgarian militarism; it means, moreover, the strengthening of reaction in Bulgaria itself. That positive, progressive result which history will, in the last analysis, extract from the ghastly events in the Balkans, will suffer no harm from the exposures made by Balkan and European democracy; on the contrary, only a struggle against the usurpation of history's tasks by the present masters of the situation will educate the Balkan peoples to play the role of superseding not only Turkish despotism but also those who, for their own reactionary purposes, are, by their own barbarous methods, now destroying that despotism...
Our agitation, on the contrary, against the way that history's problems are at present being solved, goes hand in hand with the work of the Balkan Social Democrats. And when we denounce the bloody deeds of the Balkan 'liberation' from above we carry forward the struggle not only against liberal deception of the Russian masses but also against enslavement of the Balkan masses.”
(Trotsky – The Balkan Wars)
The slogan of self-determination in relation to Ukraine is merely liberal code for “defence of the fatherland”, in the same way it was used prior to WWI and WWII. It leads inexorably to imperialist war, a war that, in today's world, means nuclear war and the destruction of humanity itself. However, much socialists might sympathise with the Ukrainian people, it cannot come above our commitment to the interests of the global working-class, and a fundamental aspect of those interests is not to be incinerated in a nuclear holocaust! We appeal to Russian socialists also to oppose the military manoeuvres of Putin, and his kleptocratic regime, and to reach out to their fellow workers in Ukraine, the rest of Europe and the world, to emphasise the need for their common struggle against war, and against the ruling class in each country. For workers in Russia, as much as in the US, UK, the Ukraine, and elsewhere, the truth remains that “The Main Enemy Is At Home”.
Putin too has been involved in the great game of global strategic manoeuvre, both in terms of his military adventures in Syria, and via more covert means such as by funding the petty-bourgeois, nationalist movements behind Brexit, Trump, Le Pen and so on. The reactionary, nationalist regime of Putin is no friend of the working-class in Russia or elsewhere across the globe. We stand in solidarity with the Russian working-class in wanting to see the back of that regime as soon as possible, but it is up to the Russian workers to bring that about, not NATO imperialism. And, the reality is that NATO aggression towards Russia, and the support given to it, by the social chauvinists within NATO countries acts to strengthen Putin, just as such aggression prior to WWII, acted to strengthen Hitler. A s Trotsky put it at that time,
"The democracies of the Versailles Entente helped the victory of Hitler by their vile oppression of defeated Germany. Now the lackeys of democratic imperialism of the Second and Third Internationals are helping with all their might the further strengthening of Hitler’s regime. Really, what would a military bloc of imperialist democracies against Hitler mean? A new edition of the Versailles chains, even more heavy, bloody and intolerable. Naturally, not a single German worker wants this. To throw off Hitler by revolution is one thing; to strangle Germany by an imperialist war is quite another. The howling of the “pacifist” jackals of democratic imperialism is therefore the best accompaniment to Hitler’s speeches. “You see,” he says to the German people, “even socialists and Communists of all enemy countries support their army and their diplomacy; if you will not rally around me, your leader, you are threatened with doom!” Stalin, the lackey of democratic imperialism, and all the lackeys of Stalin – Jouhaux, Toledano, and Company – are the best aides in deceiving, lulling, and intimidating the German workers."
We do not need to give any succour to Putin's vile regime, any more than Trotsky gave succour to Hitler, in order to simultaneously refuse to give support to our own imperialist ruling class and state, and its allies, simply on the basis that it claims to be promoting democracy against dictatorship. The truth is that the labels democracy and fascism are pretty meaningless when it comes to war and international alliances. Again, as Trotsky put it,
"The Czechoslovakian crisis revealed with remarkable clarity that fascism does not exist as an independent factor. It is only one of the tools of imperialism. “Democracy” is another of its tools. Imperialism rises above them both. It sets them in motion according to need, at times counterposing them to one another, at times amicably combining them. To fight against fascism in an alliance with imperialism, is the same as to fight in an alliance with the devil against his claws or horns...
"The struggle against fascism demands above all the expulsion of the agents of “democratic” imperialism from the ranks of the working class. Only the revolutionary proletariat of France, Great Britain, America, and the USSR, declaring a life and death struggle against their own imperialism and its agency, the Moscow bureaucracy, is capable of arousing revolutionary hopes in the hearts of the German and Italian workers, and at the same time of rallying around itself hundreds of millions of slaves and semi slaves of imperialism in the entire world. In order to guarantee peace among peoples we must overthrow imperialism under all its masks. Only the proletarian revolution can accomplish this."
(ibid)
So, for example, in 1982, when the Galtieri dictatorship in Argentina invaded the Falklands, Marxists, of course, opposed this act of aggression by him, seeing it for what it was as a means of diversion, and an attempt to rally Argentinian masses around the flag, at a time that Argentinian workers were increasingly rising up against his regime. But, that in no way meant that we gave any support to British imperialism, and Thatcher's government, in sending its military to confront the Argentinian invasion, an act itself which performed a similar function for Thatcher at a time, when her economic polices had caused mass unemployment and deindustrialisation, and when her own position was under threat. The main enemy for British workers at that time was at home in the form of Thatcher and the British imperialist state, it was not several thousand miles away in the South Atlantic, and the same is true today in respect of Russia and Ukraine.
As I set out a few days ago, the claims by NATO to be simply a defensive alliance are ludicrous. From its inception in 1949, it has been an expansionist, militaristic force. In Korea (1950-53), in Iran (1953), in Egypt (1956), in Vietnam (1955-75), in Grenada, and numerous other places where NATO, or some of its member states have intervened militarily, more or less continuously since its inception, these have not been defensive actions but entirely offensive actions. In doing so, it has also given the lie to it being about a defence of democracy against dictatorship, because time and again not only has it allied with some of the most brutal dictatorships across the planet, but is has toppled democratic governments in order to put in their place vile dictatorships.
No one should be duped by the claims being made by NATO imperialism, whose propaganda campaign is being waged with the full force of the bourgeois media, now on a scale similar to the wall to wall propaganda used during the period of the pandemic, which was used to systematically take away basic bourgeois-democratic rights such as the right to free assembly, to free movement, even imposing curfews and limitations on how long people could be out of the house, which again rather exposes the hypocrisy of its claims to democracy in contrast to the dictatorship in Russia. During all that time the social chauvinists and social imperialists, rather as they did prior to WWI and WWI, rather than opposing those restrictions on workers' liberty, cheered them on, enabling a growing Bonapartism to establish itself across much of the developed economies. As Trotsky wrote above, those social chauvinists and social imperialists, today, as in the past, are also a grave danger to the independence and self-activity of the working-class, as they attempt to line the workers of each country up behind their respective ruling class. We must drive those elements out of the labour movement, and begin to build a truly independent working-class movement capable of taking on the tasks of the hour.
No to War! Bring The Boys Home! The Main Enemy Is At Home! Workers of the World Unite.
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