A Retreat In Full Disorder
The Stalinists argued that imperialism welded together the classes of Chinese society into a single “bloc of four classes”, to fight against it. The social imperialists argue the same, today, in relation to the war in Ukraine. One camp, the pro-NATO/Ukraine camp, argue that the war is one of “national independence” against Russia. Their mirror image, the pro-Putin/Xi camp, argue that Russia is also engaged in a war of “national independence” against US/NATO imperialism, which has expanded up to Russian and Chinese borders, and provoked a pre-emptive, but defensive response.
Such conditions had been considered by Lenin, as Trotsky also describes.
“Imperialism camouflages its own peculiar aims – seizure of colonies, markets, sources of raw material, spheres of influence – with such ideas as “safeguarding peace against the aggressors,” “defence of the fatherland,” “defence of democracy,” etc. These ideas are false through and through. It is the duty of every socialist not to support them but, on the contrary, to unmask them before the people. “The question of which group delivered the first military blow or first declared war,” wrote Lenin in March 1915, “has no importance whatever in determining the tactics of socialists. Phrases about the defence of the fatherland, repelling invasion by the enemy, conducting a defensive war, etc., are on both sides a complete deception of the people.” “For decades,” explained Lenin, “three bandits (the bourgeoisie and governments of England, Russia, and France) armed themselves to despoil Germany. Is it surprising that the two bandits (Germany and Austria-Hungary) launched an attack before the three bandits succeeded in obtaining the new knives they had ordered?””
Note that, whilst Lenin states, here, that although Germany's pre-emptive response to the build up of the other bandits was not “surprising”, it, in no way, implied a justification for that response, or support for it. On the contrary, the whole point, of Lenin's argument, here, is to reject the moralistic ideas about defensive wars, on the basis of defence of the fatherland, justified on the basis of “who shot first and so on”. These are simply diversions from the real question of the class nature of the wars themselves. The pro-NATO social-imperialists, are simply lying, when they claim that its build up around Russia and China, provided no basis or justification for Russia's war. From a capitalist/imperialist basis, as Lenin and Trotsky set out, it clearly did. Indeed, the social-imperialists, themselves are forced, by reality, to have to admit it, even as they simultaneously try to deny it!
Martin Thomas, of the social-imperialist and Zionist AWL, which supports the USC, wrote a while ago, following the BRICS Summit in South Africa,
“China’s Belt and Road Initiative, its action in Hong Kong and East Turkestan, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, etc. show that BRICS vs the US-led bloc G7 is not an anti-imperialist vs imperialist line-up, but a jousting between two (loose) imperialist blocs.”
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