The AWL in their response to Socialist Appeal say,
“His explanation why this invalidates the need to defend Ukraine’s right to self-determination hinges on declaring, in defiance of facts, that this is an “inter-imperialist war” – and suggesting that the bloodshed and wider global misery caused by the conflict are therefore somehow Ukraine’s responsibility as much as Russia’s.”
Again this is duplicitous, shifting from US imperialism's responsibility, to Ukraine's responsibility. The whole question of “responsibility” is in any case odd from a Marxist perspective, having to do with morality, and “who shot first”, rather than the realities of the war, and class struggle. But, in this context, another of Trotsky's articles from the time of “Learn To Think”, and “Phrases and Reality”, is significant. In the latter, Trotsky had pointed out the role of imperialism, via the Versailles Treaty, in creating the conditions for the rise of Hitler, and for WWII.
He set out, also, the conditions that led to the Sudeten Germans seeking separation from Czechoslovakia, and how that enabled Hitler to seize upon it. In New War Flows from Versailles Banditry, Trotsky reiterates this point. But, of more direct equivalence to the situation in Ukraine, and the breakaway republics is Trotsky's article on Czechoslovakia, Social-Patriotic Sophistry. In it, he writes,
“During the critical week in September, we have been told, voices were heard even at the left flank of socialism maintaining that in case of “single combat” between Czechoslovakia and Germany, the proletariat should help Czechoslovakia and save its “national independence” even in alliance with Benes. This hypothetical case did not occur – the heroes of Czechoslovakian independence, as was to be expected, capitulated without a struggle. However, in the interests of the future we must here point out the grave and most dangerous mistake of these untimely theoreticians of “national independence.”
Even irrespective of its international ties Czechoslovakia constitutes a thoroughly imperialist state. Economically, monopoly capitalism reigns there. Politically, the Czech bourgeoisie dominates (perhaps soon we will have to say, dominated!) several oppressed nationalities. Such a war, even on the part of isolated Czechoslovakia would thus have been carried on not for national independence but for the maintenance and if possible the extension of the borders of imperialist exploitation.
For Czechoslovakia, here, could, almost word for word, also be put Ukraine, and, in place of Germans, Russians. And, the parallel continues, because Trotsky goes on to deal with the speculation that the social imperialists engage in to justify their positions, as with, for example, their speculation that what is involved, is a Russian war to subjugate the whole of Ukraine, rather than just to “liberate” Eastern Ukraine, in the same way that Hitler “liberated” the Sudeten Germans. He continues,
“It is impermissible to consider a war between Czechoslovakia and Germany, even if other imperialist states were not immediately involved, outside of that entanglement of European and world imperialist relations from which the war might have broken out as an episode. A month or two later the Czech-German war – if the Czech bourgeoisie could fight and wanted to fight – would almost inevitably have involved other states. It would therefore be the greatest mistake for a Marxist to define his position on the basis of temporary conjunctural diplomatic and military groupings, rather than on the basis of the general character of the social forces standing behind the war.”
And, of course, in WWII, that was what happened, not over Czechoslovakia, but Poland. And, already that is the case with Ukraine. From the start, NATO imperialism stood behind Ukraine, with weapons, advisors, cyber warfare, intelligence, special forces troops acting covertly (as proved by the leak of US Defence Department papers), not to mention the sabotage of Nordstream, and the global economic war waged against Russia and China. Similarly, behind Russia stood China, and, at a distance, India and other states still weighing up where their best strategic advantage in a global conflict resides, as with Russia and China's growing role in the Gulf, as seen in the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, brokered by China, a growing alliance with Turkey, and Russia and China's role in South Africa. Britain's top soldier has warned military families to prepare for their children to fight and die in Ukraine, and Zelensky, like Saakashvilli before him, continually tries to draw NATO directly into the fighting, via the introduction of no fly zones and so on, and claims that Russian missiles had landed in Poland, when all independent observers say they were Ukrainian interceptors.
Trotsky continues,
“One can say that besides the partition of the Sudeten Germans, Hungarians, Poles, and possibly the Slovaks too, Hitler will not stop before the enslavement of the Czechs themselves and that in this case their struggle for independence will have every claim upon the support of the proletariat. To pose the question in this manner is nothing but social-patriotic sophistry. What concrete roads further development of imperialist antagonisms will take we do not know. Complete destruction of Czechoslovakia is possible, of course. But it is also possible that before this destruction will have been accomplished a European war will break out and Czechoslovakia will find itself on the side of the victors and participate in a new dismemberment of Germany. Is the role of a revolutionary party then that of nurse of the “victimized” gangsters of imperialism?
It is absolutely clear that the proletariat must construct its policy on the basis of the given war as it is, i.e., as it has been determined by the whole preceding course of development and not on hypothetical speculation over a possible strategic result of the war. In such speculations everyone will inevitably choose that variant which corresponds best to his own desires, national sympathies and antipathies. It is clear that such a policy does not have a Marxist but a subjective, not an internationalist but a chauvinist character.”
But, it is precisely that chauvinist character that the policy of the AWL/USC bases itself upon.
“An imperialist war, no matter from what corner it begins, will be carried on not for “national independence” but for the division of the world in the interests of separate cliques of finance capital. This does not exclude that in passing the imperialist war could improve or worsen the condition of this or that “nation,” or, more exactly, of one nation at the expense of another. Thus, the Versailles peace treaty dismembered Germany. A new peace treaty may dismember France. Social-patriots utilize precisely this possible “national” danger of the future in order to support “their” imperialist bandits of the present. Czechoslovakia does not represent any exception from this role.”
And, the same could be said word for word for Ukraine.
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