08.06.2023

Notes on the war

With Kyiv’s long-trailed military offensive now seemingly underway, Jack Conrad warns that we should still expect a prolonged, bitter war of attrition and eventually a US attempt to encircle and strangle China

Well, we have just a few weeks left before summer officially begins and news is finally coming in of Ukraine’s long awaited spring offensive - but no confirmation from Kyiv officials. However, Russian and western military observers alike report that there is fighting in various sectors along the Donetsk and eastern Zaporizhzhia fronts. Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group, bitterly complains that Berkhivka, a little village three kilometres northwest of Bakhmut, had fallen. But other than the breaching of the Nova Kakhovka dam and the biblical-scale flood, there have been no major developments.

Maybe the promise of a game-changing spring offensive helped persuade the US and its allies into stumping up extra high arms deliveries: Leopard 2 battle tanks, long-range Storm Shadow missiles and F-16s. But if there was no ‘big push’ then there existed a real risk of a loss of morale amongst Ukraine’s armed forces and the wider Ukrainian Ukrainian population itself. War enthusiasm, in many ways justified, the yearning for revenge on the Russian invaders, could conceivably give way to dejected war weariness.

There was, too,the risk of some sort of a crisis of expectations amongst Nato powers - not least in America, where the hard-right Republicans (crucially former president Donald Trump) are questioning the budgetary, diplomatic and strategic worth of providing Ukraine with an iron-clad guarantee as it tries to regain every inch of territory lost since 2014. Isolationist Republicans care little about “a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing” (Iran and China are, strangely, another matter entirely).

Volodymyr Zelensky has, of course, been sending mixed messages: that Ukraine has everything it needs, that the offensive is ready to begin, that Ukraine still does not have everything it needs, that it is running low on artillery shells, SAMs and drones. Either way, he is sort of obliged to do something.

So, what to expect? Kyiv is thought have three or four newly formed tank brigades and 12 combat brigades - three of them trained in Ukraine and nine trained and equipped by the US - specifically available for the offensive. However, the idea of a “decisive” breakthrough, while possible, is surely unlikely. A sober-minded assessment, found in the Pentagon papers leaked back in April, predicted a “stalemate”.¹

Ukraine lacks the element of surprise, the necessary hardware and the overwhelming (3:1) manpower advantage recommended by military theorists, when it comes to a war of the offensive, as opposed to a war of the defensive. The name, Frederick Lanchester (1868-1946), ought to be mentioned in this context: he produced a whole series of neat mathematical formulas.²

The actual ratio on the frontline is more like 1:1. Besides that, as discussed in my last ‘Notes on the war’, there has, on the Russian side, been a “significant build-up of trenches and other fortifications” since October 2022.³ The BBC provided, having studied hundreds of detailed satellite images, a real insight into what awaits advancing Ukrainian forces.⁴ It is certainly not a few sleepy border guards before a quick drive over green fields and a paddle in the warm waters of the Black Sea. No, Ukraine’s tanks and infantry face a fearsome array of defences. Typically, first a deep anti-tank ditch, which is followed by rows of ‘dragons teeth’. These 3-4 foot high pyramid shaped concrete blocks are likewise designed to impede tanks and other military vehicles. Next come successive lines and networks of trenches and bunkers. Likely there will be hidden mines too. Behind those obstacles there are well-protected artillery positions. The Russians will attempt to funnel Ukrainian forces into pretargeted killing zones.

The BBC website provides a useful map, which shows such defences in place “along the whole of the Russian frontline in Ukraine and all the way up the internationally recognised border between the two countries”. It should be noted that in my last article the word ‘to’ was unfortunately inserted into this sentence: “… along the whole of the Russian frontline in Ukraine and all the way up to the internationally recognised border between the two countries” (corrected online). If the print version was accurate, then general Valery Gerasimov and the Russian high command would indeed be very stupid - much more stupid than I take them for anyway.

All Ukraine’s offensive would have to do is open a new north-eastern front and circumvent Russian defensive lines in the way the Germans did twice against France: first in August 1914 and then in May 1940. Eg, Hitler Germany’s initial thrust against France avoided the heavily fortified Maginot Line and came via the neutral countries of the Lowlands. This diverted French and British armies northwards. Only then did Germany’s concentrated panzer divisions, strongly supported from the air, strike through the wooded countryside of the Ardennes, cross the Meuse and, without waiting for the infantry, push towards the heart of France itself. Despite the relatively small number of German forces engaged in the north, the governments of the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium promptly surrendered and the German general, Heinz Guderian, long an advocate of Blitzkrieg, kept moving in the centre, till he “produced the most sweeping victory in modern history”. French prime minister Paul Reynaud phoned Winston Churchill on May 15 to say: “We have lost the battle.”⁵

Ukraine can do nothing like that. Not just because of a comparative lack of manpower, armour, artillery, missiles and aircraft … and Russian defence lines. The simple fact of the matter is that no Ukrainian military offensive could deliver a direct political knock-out blow on Russia. The aim, after all, is to retake the Donbass, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea. Not take Moscow.

Without a doubt, though, wars are not decided by abstract 3:1 formulas. Personnel numbers, food, fuel and ammunition supplies, and the quantity and quality of equipment count, but so too do intangibles, such as imagination, chance and morale. A point emphasised again and again by the Prussian military philosopher, Carl von Clausewitz, in his classic, 1832 study, Vom Kriege: “in combat the loss of moral force is the chief cause of the decision.”⁶

Boosting morale, despite the risks of retaliation, surely explains why Zelensky has given the nod to drone strikes on the Kremlin and the outskirts of Moscow, assassination attempts on Putin’s far-right allies and attacks on Belgorod oblast launched by the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps. Ben Wallace, UK defence minister, seems keen on such provocations, but the US defence sectary, Lloyd Austin, less so.

Either way - and this is the crucial point - everything shows, for the moment at least, that the war in Ukraine is at a strategic impasse. That is what Ukraine’s predictable determination to resist Russia’s invasion, plus the west’s Stingers, Nlaws, Switchblades, Himars, Patriots, Storm Shadows, Abrams, Challengers and Leopards have achieved - despite widespread initial expectations of a swift Russian victory, mostly because of the sheer size of its armed forces. As repeatedly argued here, a long war of attrition looks to be on the cards - three, four, many more years.

So it is unlikely that the US-UK axis is banking on an outright Ukrainian military victory in what is now widely recognised to be a full-on proxy war. No, the thinking is to get Russia bogged down in a quagmire - an unwinnable war - which will create the conditions for regime change in Moscow (a rollback strategy mapped out by the likes of Zbigniew Brzezinski and proclaimed by Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on January 23 1980). That strategy worked like a dream in Afghanistan and is now being applied to the rump Russian Federation (the main inheritor state of the former Soviet Union).

Not only have Nato and the EU been steadily extended eastwards all the way to the borders of Russia itself, but Vladimir Putin and his generals were lured into a bear trap: launching an ill-advised, ill-prepared, full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The ‘special military operation’ proved, predictably, to be an utter disaster. No wonder members of the US think tank-administration-military apparatus are now excitedly talking about the “beginning of the end” of Putin’s siloviki regime and the coming “break-up” of the Russian Federation.

Break-up

Take the Anglophile, Luke Coffey, of the Hudson Institute - he once worked for Liam Fox when he was defence secretary and, before that, Conservative Party HQ. He tells the Daily Mail that failure in Ukraine will split the Russian elite into two hostile camps.⁷ Those whom he calls the hardliners - eg, Prigozhin - will say that the war could have been won if only they had been put in charge and allowed to impose martial law, go for a war economy and full mobilisation. The other section, the so-called oligarchs, will look to safeguard their ill-gotten wealth and seek a rapprochement with the west. Meanwhile, embittered soldiers returning to the regions will “rise up” against Moscow and help break the Russian Federation up into a mosaic of easy-to-control states.

Attempts to Balkanise Russia, oft flagged up here, it would appear, are already being actioned by bodies such as the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Center for European Policy Analysis, the Jamestown Foundation and Executive Intelligence Review. Last year the CSCE hosted a conference in Washington DC titled ‘Decolonizing Russia: a moral and strategic imperative’. The final resolution calls for:

all citizens of indigenous peoples and colonial regions to immediately begin active actions for the peaceful decolonization, liberation, declaration/restoration of sovereignty and independence of their countries [and on] the peoples and governments of the UN member states to support and assist us … in our efforts to streamline the uncontrolled process of disintegration of a nuclear state.

That assistance must include official recognition of the independence and sovereignty of the following states of indigenous peoples and colonial areas: Tatarstan, Ingria (a historical region in the north-west of Russia, including the current St Petersburg region), Bashkortostan, Karelia, Buryatia, Kalmykia, the Baltic Republic (Königsberg, East Prussia), Komi, Cherkessia, Siberia, the Urals, the Republics of Don, Tyva, Kuban, Dagestan, the Pacific Federation (Primorsky Territory and the Amur Region), the Moscow Republic, Erzya Mastor ([in] the territory of Mordovia), Sakha, Pomorie, Chuvashia, Chernozyom region, Mordovia, Volga region, Khakassia, Udmurtia, Tyumen Yugra, Mari El, Altai, Ingushetia, etc.

The resolution likewise encourages the formation of ‘National transitional governments/administrations’ and for regional parliaments to “declare state sovereignty and start inter-parliamentary consultations on a mechanism for seceding from the Russian Federation; and constitutions to be prepared.” Chillingly, an accompanying ‘Northern Eurasia 2023’ map depicts a would-be “post-Russia” utopia with 41 new states carved out of the Russian Federation.⁸

True, there are influential voices - eg, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Yukos oil tycoon - who warn that the ghastly consequences of the break-up of the Russian Federation would be “dangerous for the west”.⁹ One can easily imagine nuclear armed warlords, crashing living standards, millions of economic refugees and descent into utter barbarism.

Naturally then, Brussels, London and Washington are doing their best to corral the disparate Russian opposition into agreeing a common programme. While they do not want to name a single charismatic individual as leader, the agenda is surely clear: getting their man into the Kremlin - say, the already presidential Alexei Navalny. Historically their model is Boris Yeltsin - a dupe of US imperialism and a hero for disorientated western leftists such as Tariq Ali.¹⁰

With a pliant satrap such as Navalny successfully crowned through a colour revolution election and a humiliating withdrawal from Ukraine, a Versailles-type peace treaty would be imposed. Russia would be obliged to pay huge reparations, forgo nuclear weapons, shut down its high-end arms industry and accept its status as a US-dominated oil- and gas-producing neo colony.

Xi Jinping is unlikely to sit idly by while such a scenario is played out. He knows perfectly well that the main strategic target is China itself. The US has already set up Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjiang in pursuit of instituting its “new world order”.¹¹ Joe Biden hopes that, by first seeing off Russia and then surrounding and strangling the People’s Republic, the US will be able to “manage” the Eurasian world island for the benefit of its giant corporations, plutocrats and great-power interests - as envisaged by Zbigniew Brzezinski.¹²

Of course, the US does not want a generalised nuclear exchange and Mutually Assured Destruction. Doubtless that is why everything is carefully calibrated. Ukraine is being supplied with enough military hardware to resist Russia, but not enough to actually decisively win. Doubtless, that approach also explains the recent visit of CIA director Bill Barns to Beijing. China can benefit from cheap Russian oil and gas, but must be persuaded to have a “predictable” relationship with the US and back off from any direct military involvement with its Austria-Hungary. There is already a mounting sanctions war, and China should not risk a hot war. A message that seems well understood by China’s newly appointed defence minister, general Li Shangfu. Speaking in Singapore, he said war with the US would be an “unbearable disaster”.¹³

Not that we want to paint a picture of everything going the way of US imperialism. Far from it. Politically the US is increasingly dysfunctional. January 6 2021 even saw an attempted self-coup by the president himself. With the absolute limits imposed by nature, the continuation of capitalism poses an existential threat to human civilisation. The Earth Commission group of scientists reports that “safe boundaries” have already been crossed in climate, biodiversity, water, land use, etc.¹⁴ Biden’s August 2022 ‘Green New Deal’ is clearly “insufficient”.¹⁵ The proxy war in Ukraine has certainly triggered an inflationary spiral, a cost of living crisis and added to the hell of precarious employment and homelessness. Millions of ordinary Americans turn to alcohol, prescription opioids and street drugs. Meanwhile, much of the so-called global south, including the once completely servile Saudi Arabia, refuses to join the anti-Russia crusade. The old world is visibly crumbling, decaying, putrefying.

Therefore, the possibility - warned about by Yevgeny Prigozhin, but wanted by us - of events culminating “as in 1917 with a revolution” ... and not only in Russia, but the USA, Britain, France, Germany, Brazil, China, South Africa, etc, etc.¹⁶ Of course, the new world will not be born without in each country a mass Communist Party serving as midwife. Although at the moment it is easier to imagine nuclear war or climate breakdown than a socialist revolution, for the sake of humanity that is what must happen. The first step being summoning the subjective will on the left to break with the bureaucratic centralism of the confessional sects, broad frontism and tailing the liberal bourgeoisie in the name of lesser-evilism.

Imperialism

Mention ought to be made the routine charge that Russia is imperialist and is engaged in an imperialist war. A trope that effortlessly trips off the lips of just about every mainstream bourgeois politician. Of course, nowadays the words ‘imperial’, ‘imperialist’ and ‘imperialistic’ carry entirely negative connotations. Long gone are the glory days of direct European colonialism and the white man’s burden. Hence when it comes to the leading capitalist powers - eg, the G7 - they proudly boast of being democracies, and imperialism is used either in reference to what is admitted as a slightly guilty past or, more likely, wielded as an ideological weapon against current and future rivals.

Naturally enough there is a philistine current on the ‘left’ which apes and echoes the dominant ideology and therefore openly or sneakily sides with their ‘own government’, when it comes to foreign policy. So here in Britain, while Rishi Sunak’s stonewalling over public-sector pay and clampdown on protests, free speech and trade union rights is routinely denounced, the same ‘left’ urges him on over Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions on Russians. As if foreign and domestic policy were not inextricably connected - foreign policy being a continuation of domestic policy.

Once, this ‘left’ would have advocated what was called a ‘positive’ or ‘socialist’ colonial policy in the name of internationalism, enlightening backward natives, securing vital raw materials and developing the means of production on a global scale. Whatever the horrors, the depravity, the crimes of actual colonialism, the notion was that, with the influence, the help of socialists, colonialism could be carried out in a benign manner that benefited everyone. A lie upheld by, amongst many others, Eduard Bernstein in Germany and the Fabians in Britain. Come August 1914 and this current instantly morphed into full-blown social-imperialism that justified the predatory war aims of their ‘own’ capitalist country with all sorts of tawdry ‘socialist’ excuses - even quotes plucked from the writings of Marx and Engels.

It is the same today. There exists a distinct social-imperialist camp. Not, as we have repeatedly explained, Sir Keir and the Parliamentary Labour Party! Obviously not. Any such suggestion is really dumb. There is nothing remotely social(ist) about them. They are just plain, everyday, bourgeois career politicians and, as such, just as committed to the Atlantic alliance and the total defeat of Russia as is the Joe Biden administration and the Rishi Sunak government.

No, on the far right of the far left we have the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign - along with a rogues’ gallery of affiliates, supporters and outriders, eg, the Labour Representation Committee, Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, Anticapitalist Resistance, Emancipation and Liberation, RS21, John McDonnell, Nadia Whittome and Gilbert Achcar.

For the lot of them it is an open-and-shut case: Ukraine is fighting a justified war of national defence and Russia is an imperialist country conducting a war of imperialist aggression. Science, though, is noticeably lacking. Imperialism is simply equated with territorial expansionism, even if it is defensive expansionism. Nato, though it is expanding, becomes a purely defensive organisation.

If one wants to define imperialism as nothing more than invading another country and grabbing extra territory, so be it. The Athens of Pericles, the late Roman republic and Tudor England were imperialist. No problem. Imperialism existed well before modern capitalism, even before capitalism itself. But Marxism has done the great service of locating imperialism in the context of a capitalism dominated by finance, giant monopolies and a system of global domination and exploitation. Competition within the nation becomes competition between nations. Inevitably, this gives rise to a definite, but always contested, pecking order, with at the top a dominant nation. Hence in the 17th century England successfully challenged the Dutch for global hegemony, Britain saw off the French challenge in the 19th century and the German challenge in the 20th century, but finally succumbed to the United States in the 1940s.

However, the crucial question is not one of semantics, but operative conclusions. Frankly, whether or not Russia should be categorised as an imperialist power is an entirely secondary matter for us, which we shall, nonetheless, discuss below. No what really matters is excusing, urging on, promoting the so-called western powers and the US empire of the dollar, military bases, alliances, institutions and treaties: eg, the G7, World Bank and IMF, Nato, the Five Eyes and AUKUS, through which today hegemony is exercised.

Here Paul Mason can be used to show the logical outcome of social-imperialism. His political origins lie in the Socialist Workers Party, after which he split and split again. First heading Workers Power, then Permanent Revolution, before getting a well-paid job on BBC 2’s flagship Newsnight programme. After that it was to the right via anarchistic posturings to capitalist accelerationism, till he arrived at his present-day position of advocating an ideological and organisational war against the left. It should be added that the renegade is still frantically hawking himself around various Constituency Labour Parties in the attempt to get himself adopted as a parliamentary candidate for the forthcoming general election. He obviously fancies himself as a cabinet minister with the ‘defence’ portfolio.

Stung by the 130:121 vote in the University and College Union to back a Stop the War motion calling for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and opposing Nato escalation, Mason demands that no union leaders should share a joint platform with StWC, no invitations to speak on picket lines be given and that unions “stop collaborating with their mouthpiece, the Morning Star”. In that McCarthyite spirit he insists: “All unions should disaffiliate immediately from Stop the War.”

As for the Parliamentary Labour Party, he wants to go much further than Sir Keir has been prepared to go … so far. Labour’s election manifesto, he rightly says, will back increased defence spending, continued support for arms to Ukraine, a strengthened Nato and nuclear deterrence. Therefore - and here comes the rub - “every Labour parliamentary candidate will be required explicitly to support that” manifesto and therefore it is “reasonable”, says Mason, “to ask for every Labour MP to make a statement in support of those policies now”.¹⁷

A barely concealed call for Sir Keir to extend his purge to the 30-strong Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs. True, the lot of them have been utterly spineless over the Ukraine war (and just about everything else, for that matter). But, and this is no fantasy, Sir Keir might well take his lead from Paul Mason on this issue. The last thing he wants is a narrow Labour majority and a situation where the SCG holds him to ransom on this or that parliamentary vote. So maybe it will be a case of break them, or if that fails, see the back of them … this side of the general election.

Russia

Naturally the likes of Mason ‘disappear’ imperialism - except when it comes to Russia and China. Yet the US, though it maintains no vast colonial bureaucracy, unmistakably exploits the world with a callous ruthlessnpess unequalled in human history. US banks and corporations suck in wealth from other countries like a never-quenched vampire. Britain is the junior partner, which benefits through the City and plays the role of yapdog, when it comes to wars such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

Failure to place the Russia-Ukraine war in this context is not only to desert Marxism, but reality. Ukraine cannot be seen in isolation. Behind it there stands the unmatched might of the dominant imperialist bloc. Having violently pulled Ukraine out of the Russian orbit with the 2014 Maidan coup, the US, move by move, directed it as a pliant pawn in the great game to dominate the Eurasian space.

Sympathising with ordinary Ukrainians who have been killed, injured, lost loved ones, fled abroad, etc, is perfectly natural. War is horrible. But to wish for Ukraine’s victory, to support its war aims - not least imposing Banderite rule over Russian-majority Donbas and Crimea - to demand that Nato ‘Arm, arm, arm Ukraine’ and call ‘Putin, Putin, Putin, out, out, out’ is to scab on international socialism and to act as an agent for the imperialism of the US and its allies. In Russia it might well be the case that principled communists would say that they ‘prefer to see a Russian defeat than its victory’. But, to state the obvious, we are not in Russia.

There can be no doubt that historically tsarist Russia was a colonial power and built a vast prison house of nations. Beginning as the autocratic feudal principality of Muscovy, there were, especially with the decline of the Mongol empire, leaping expansions to the east and the south. Tsarism dismembered Poland, took over the Baltics and established its rule over Finland too.

Naturally, Lenin roundly condemned Russian colonialism and saw tsarism as both socially and politically anachronistic - but also increasingly as a servant of big capital. In his Imperialism, though, Lenin included Russia amongst the great imperialist powers, almost wholly because of its colonial possessions. In terms of colonial territory and subject peoples it ranked between Britain and France: ie, ahead of Germany, the US and Japan (1914 figures).¹⁸ However, its large-scale industry and banks tended to be foreign-owned - or dependent - and the tsarist state was massively in hock (mainly to the French financial oligarchy). Overall the country was dominated by peasant agriculture and characterised by extreme economic backwardness. Exactly why Leon Trotsky wrote about Russia’s course of development, giving it a “semi-colonial” character.¹⁹ In other words, Russia was a semi-colonial colonising power.

I shall not set out my views on the nature of the 1917-91 Soviet state here, except in terms of negatives: eg, post-1928 and the first five-year plan ideas about a workers’ state, degenerate or otherwise, are simply not credible. Instead let us skip straight to the character of the Russian Federation presided over by Putin. Towards that end Andrew Murray acts as a useful interlocutor. Who is comrade Murray? He is, of course, a former Straight Leftist, a regular writer for the Morning Star, a partisan of the Communist Party of Britain and has been a leading member of StWC since its foundation.

Having returned to the ranks of the CPB after a brief period of entry work in the Labour Party (he served as a key advisor to Jeremy Corbyn), this self-declared Stalinite now routinely classifies the Russian Federation as “imperialistic”.²⁰ Why? Because monopolies are the “essence” of imperialism and the Russian Federation, irrefutably, has its share of monopolies: eg, Gazprom, Rosneft, Lukoil and Sberbank.²¹ That, however, would make countries such as India, Brazil, South Africa and even Ukraine imperialist too. After all, each has its own batch of home-grown monopolies (ie, oligopolies, to use standard bourgeois economic jargon).

Without in any way treating Lenin’s Imperialism as a bible - it contains some clearly mistaken arguments - it is worth quoting in this context. For Lenin, imperialism is not only about monopoly and finance capital. It is the scale, proportion and the dominance of overseas interest payments, dividends, rent and such. Hence Lenin emphasises parasitism and the fact that in imperial Britain the “income of the rentiers is five times greater than the income obtained from the foreign trade”. “This”, he declares, “is the essence of imperialism and imperialist parasitism.”²²

America, it should be noted, pulls off exactly the same trick - and then one. With the dollar serving as the world’s reserve currency, the US government can run a trillion dollar deficit through recourse to the simple device of what used to be called the printing press. Other countries thereby pay for Uncle Sam’s profligacy.

Clearly, Russia does not parasitically exploit the world, or even its near abroad, in any meaningful way. Despite its 150 million population it has a GDP that ranks far behind Germany, the UK, France, even Italy. No, it is in the third division, down with countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea and Australia. Even taking into account oil and gas, geographic size and nuclear weapons, it is most decidedly not a serious rival to the United States.

Murray could be echoing his friends in the Communist Party of Greece, who rightly adopt, albeit for the wrong reasons, a ‘plague on both houses’ approach to the Ukraine war (damn both Putin’s Russia and Nato’s proxy). But more likely he has fallen under the spell of John Rees and Lindsey German through close association with them in StWC. Despite their schism with the SWP, this power couple remain loyal to Tony Cliff’s theory of bureaucratic state capitalism. That is not to suggest that Murray is an empty vessel. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union he has lost his ideological moorings, that is for sure.

If Putin’s Russian Federation is to be classified as non-imperialist, there is, remember, a left which considers itself duty-bound to offer ‘military’ support. Actually, this has nothing to do with raising an international brigade or sending money to buy arms. No, of course, military support is political support: ie, articles in the press calling for ‘Russian victory’. We therefore have a pro-Kremlin left. However, if the Russian Federation is safely classified as imperialist, then the StWC can carry on holding protests which feature ‘Russia out’ as a lead slogan.

Either way, Murray is opposed by a CPB majority that, while upholding the same StWC social-pacifism, inclines in the direction of the pro-Kremlin left. Hence Martin Levy’s Communist Review had Stewart McGill explaining why Russia cannot be counted as imperialist and Marc Vandepitte explaining the “real reason” why Russia invaded (Nato expansionism).²³

Obviously, the essence of modern imperialism is no longer colonial possessions. They do not belong in the American century, as the British and French found to their cost with the 1956 Suez crisis. Undoubtedly there are, dotted here and there, a few surviving genuine colonies: mostly, however, they are tax havens, which, especially in the case of Britain, provide the means for the City of London to skim off profits from high-level state and business corruption, criminal operations such as the drugs trade and perfectly legal tax-avoidance dodges.

No, the essence of modern imperialism is unequal exchange, the export of capital and a global pecking order which allows the G7 imperialist countries (headed, of course, by the US) to hold the non-imperialist countries - call them neo colonies if you will - in structural subordination.

What Russia’s so-called oligarchs typically exported (‘so-called’ because they do not rule) was money, not capital (ie, self-expanding value). Their wealth - well, till they were sanctioned - generally took the form of swollen offshore bank accounts, swish London and New York properties, English football clubs and luxury yachts.

China is another matter. It is no match for the US and allies. Nonetheless, it can be classified as imperialist in the modern sense, because it not only exports commodities, but capital (not something that either Andrew Murray or the thoroughly prostituted CPB wants to investigate, naturally enough).

1. edition.cnn.com/2023/04/11/politics/pentagon-documents-ukraine-war-assessment.↩︎

2. . PK Davies Aggregation, disaggregation and the 3:1 rule in ground warfare: www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2007/MR638.pdf.↩︎

3. Weekly Worker May 25 2023: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1444/notes-on-the-war.↩︎

4. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65615184.↩︎

5. . BH Liddle Hart History of the Second World War London 1970, pp73-74.↩︎

6. . C von Clausewitz On war Harmondsworth 1976. p310.↩︎

7. Daily Mail June 3 2023.↩︎

8. The EurAsian Times June 1 2023.↩︎

9. Politico June 5 2023.↩︎

10. . See T Ali Revolution from above: where is the Soviet Union going? London 1988. The book was dedicated to “comrade Boris Yeltsin”.↩︎

11. www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/03/21/remarks-by-president-biden-before-business-roundtables-ceo-quarterly-meeting.↩︎

12. . Z Brzezinski The grand chessboard New York 1997, p30.↩︎

13. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-65803311.↩︎

14. Nature May 31 2023.↩︎

15. climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa.↩︎

16. www.reuters.com/world/europe/mercenary-prigozhin-warns-russia-could-face-revolution-unless-elite-gets-serious-2023-05-24.↩︎

17. htsf.substack.com/p/ukraine-we-need-to-talk-about-campism.↩︎

18. . VI Lenin CW Vol 22, Moscow 1977, p258.↩︎

19. . L Trotsky The history of the Russian revolution Vol 1, London 1967, p25.↩︎

20. www.stopwar.org.uk/article/does-the-ucu-vote-signal-a-break-with-the-establishments-position-on-ukraine.↩︎

21. . Letters Morning Star August 27-28 2022.↩︎

22. . My emphasis, VI Lenin CW Vol 22, Moscow 1977, p277.↩︎

23. Communist Review No104, summer 2022.↩︎