Gantry 5

 

Ukraine: two years of imperialist war

Bulletin No43 Février 2024  A terrible human toll
The high-intensity military conflict, triggered on February 24, 2022 on the territory of Ukraine by what the Russian Federation describes as a special operation , has lasted for two years.  The human toll of this war is terrifying. Hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, massive destruction amounting to tens of billions of euros, the exodus of millions of Ukrainians and misery for millions of workers and at the same time, the enrichment of Ukrainian and Russian capitalists as well as their allies who gorge themselves on military credits.
Where does this war come from?
Our party has from the beginning drawn attention to the reasons that led to this situation. It takes root in the process of counter-revolutionary dissolution of the Soviet Union and led to the constitution of new capitalist oligarchic classes in the former Soviet Republics, classes which were constituted and enriched by the plunder of social property, while the Workers have suffered a terrible shock, plunging millions of them into poverty with an unprecedented setback in their social and political rights.
If in the initial phase of destruction of the Soviet Union, the leaders of the capitalist classes in formation received direct support from the imperialist powers and particularly from the United States, very quickly, divergent interests regarding the zones of influence to be to keep or to conquer some have taken the upper hand.
This struggle for control of natural resources, lines of communication, markets, labor power and spheres of influence is nothing less than the expression of the fierce competition between the big monopolies and the States at their service to ensure the highest profit rates and allow the accumulation of capital. Ukraine, because it is located in a meeting zone between the sphere of influence of the United States, the European Union and their military system which is NATO and that of the Eurasian camp whose China and Russia are the backbone and have been an issue of domination for both sides [1] . If the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs put it in a position of control, the latter ultimately chose the Euro-Atlantic camp. This has been the determining factor in the policies pursued by the Ukrainian capitalist class, particularly since the Maidan coup in 2013-2014.
A war within the imperialist system
The war taking place on the territory of Ukraine is an imperialist war [2] and this is how our party analyzed it in its statement of February 22, 2022. We confirmed this analysis with our participation to the joint declaration of March 3, 2022 [3] of dozens of communist parties around the world and which declared: “ The developments in the situation in Ukraine are taking place within the framework of monopolistic capitalism. They are linked to the plans of the United States. United, NATO and EU and their intervention in the region in the context of their fierce competition with capitalist Russia for control of the country's markets, raw materials and transport networks. These actions are covered up by the imperialist powers, who are in conflict by promoting their own pretexts such as the "defense of democracy", "self-defense" and the right of each person to "choose their alliances", respect for the principles of UN or OSCE, or so-called "fascism", while deliberately detaching fascism from the capitalist system that gives rise to and uses it. "This declaration was confirmed by a new joint declaration⁴ in March 2023 from the communist and workers' parties of which our party is a signatory and which called for struggle: " We call on the people of the countries involved in the war to strengthen their struggle against the propaganda of the bourgeois powers which push people towards the “meat grinder” of imperialist war using various fallacious pretexts. Demand that military bases be closed and all troops on overseas missions return home. Strengthen the struggle for the disengagement of their countries from imperialist organizations and alliances such as NATO and the EU. The interest of the working class and the popular strata requires that the class criterion be reinforced in the analysis of developments, so that the peoples form a common front against the camp of the imperialists, who clash for their interests, causing damage. Huge human losses, significant material damage, exposing all of humanity to the real danger of nuclear annihilation. Workers must chart their own independent path and strengthen the class struggle against monopolies, bourgeois classes and imperialist war, for the overthrow of capitalism, for socialism, which remains more necessary than ever and shows the way to peace, friendship and mutual cooperation between peoples."
After two years of war, where are we?
The balance of forces on the ground has remained relatively static for a year. The Ukrainian counter-offensive in the summer, largely supported and financed by the United States, the EU and NATO, did not bring about any substantial change in the front line. Russia still occupies almost 20% of Ukraine's territory and has annexed these territories which it now considers an integral part of the Russian Federation. If for its part Ukraine is considerably weakened from an economic, demographic, human and therefore military point of view and is only holding together through the financial, military and political support of Western powers, Russia has managed to circumvent the sanctions. Its economy took on a war regime allowing it to renew and develop its military potential. It benefits from the neutrality and even support of many states around the world. Its economic growth now places it in the top 10 of the world's capitalist powers. It has largely reoriented its trade towards the Asian region and particularly with China, an Asian region whose capitalist development is booming [4] .
The development of the situation serves as a pretext for Western leaders to accelerate the arms race, which is a source of enormous capitalist profits and at the same time it questions them about the continuation of their support for Ukraine with a view to Russia's ability to control the current situation. 
Despite the war, business between capitalists continues
Everything therefore shows that Russia is not a minor player in the imperialist system. It has natural resources, energy reserves and industry that are largely under the control of powerful public and private monopolies. Despite the war and the sanctions, it continues to trade with the capitalist companies of the Euro-Atlantic camp and vice versa. Thus, Russia supplies the United States with part of the uranium necessary for the operation of its 92 reactors. Its specialized agency continues to reprocess some of the nuclear materials from European power plants. Although the transit of natural gas by gas pipelines has decreased, it is not interrupted, including that passing through Ukraine giving the latter transit fees and Russian Liquefied Natural Gas arrives by boat in European ports . At the same time, the American Chevron continues to exploit oil in Kazakhstan and transports it by pipeline to the Russian port of Novorossiysk, from where it is loaded onto tankers.
The anti-imperialist struggle
In an article devoted to the conflict in Ukraine [5] from the start of the war based on our analysis of the imperialist character of the conflict, we clearly expressed that there was no question for us of rallying one or the other camp but to lead the class struggle against capitalism and imperialism and first and foremost ours: " If Ukraine is today at the center of conflicts within imperialism in Europe, it is that the destruction of the USSR has exacerbated the competition for the domination of the center of Europe. The former capitalist powers are competing for the cake with a Russia which has become capitalist again and which wants to ensure its domination there, in economic but also strategic terms. a glacis on its western borders. The people have nothing to expect from these confrontations which can plunge Europe into crises which could go as far as war. The path of the struggle for socialism, the cooperation of nations and peoples liberated from capitalism is therefore the only possible path to lasting and solid peace in Europe ."
We have not changed our compass and we have continued to denounce the harmful nature of capitalism as the bearer of war. We have on every occasion led the fight against France's membership in NATO, the military expression of the Euro-Atlantic alliance. We fight plans for the rearmament and militarization of society.
At the same time, we have clearly denounced in a document called: " About the global anti-imperialist platform " [6] the harmful orientations for the revolutionary movement which have crystallized in the latter which has clearly aligned itself in one of the imperialist camps, that of Russia erasing the reality of the counter-revolution which put an end to the Soviet Union. At the same time, we have dismantled the legend of a new multipolar world which would be the basis of the anti-imperialist struggle [7] : " For the Communist Revolutionary Party, these concepts of a unipolar and multipolar world are illusions. The reality is that we live in a world totally or almost won over to capitalism, which means a sharpening of conflicts between powers, the idea of ​​settling differences through war and the maintenance of peoples under the yoke of exploitation. "It is not a multipolar world that we need, but a world free of capitalism, a world without an imperialist power, neither the United States and its partners, nor its imperialist rivals."
In conclusion, we reaffirm our analyzes on the nature of the war in Ukraine [8] and we call for and organize the class struggle to bring down capitalism and build a society of cooperation, peace of producers and peoples: a socialist society. We constantly make the connection between the fight for the rights of workers and peoples and the overthrow of capitalism.
Paris February 24, 2024