New Left Review: Ukraine, “America’s Proxy War”.
“Not unprovoked.” Russian onslaught says New Left Review.
The Editor of New Left Review and partner of Tariq Ali writes,
Putin’s lurch to war, disastrous for Russia as well as for Ukraine, is unjustifiable. But it was not unprovoked. nato enlargement has been an aggressive operation and Moscow has always been in its sights. In calling for a stable settlement of military borders, the Kremlin has a good case. From its foundation in 1949, nato was always an offensive, not a defensive enterprise, whose ultimate objective in American eyes was the restoration of a normal capitalism in the Soviet bloc.
the myth of nato as a political club for democracies, which a country like Ukraine might freely elect to join on the principle of self-determination. But on several counts, this is wishful thinking. First, democracy has proved dispensable for nato, where the governing logic remains that of a hegemon’s military instrument. nato’s longstanding south-eastern pillars, Greece and Turkey, remained in place under ferocious military dictatorships—and in Ankara’s case, despite its extinction of democratic will in Cyprus. Second, to join nato is precisely to surrender sovereign self-determination to external military command—the reason de Gaulle pulled France from nato integration. There may be a case for small countries, knowing themselves to be prey, to surrender their sovereignty to a greater power in exchange for protection; the weak do what they must. But those proposing it for Ukraine should be frank about what is entailed: not the exercise of sovereign self-determination but its abrogation, and a willingness to see Ukrainian territory become a militarized front line against its giant neighbour. Third, the era of cost-free nato enlargement has come to an end. Whatever the outcome of the 2022 war for Ukraine, its price tag will be unignorable.
In Ukraine, Obama’s erstwhile Director of the cia has candidly explained, the us is fighting a proxy war with Russia. In such a conflict, the war aims of the great power and those of its proxy may not coincide. For the Ukrainian leadership, the goal is to expand the war in order to end it faster—with the imposition by the us or nato of a no-fly zone, knocking out Russian jets and air defences to relieve the pressure on Ukrainian fighters and citizens. Already nato steel and popular courage have altered the course of the war in Kiev’s favour, at a price of high devastation and mounting Ukrainian casualty rates.
Many of these claims are flatly contradicted by Gilbert Achar who wrote recently of another ‘anti-imperialist’, “This fake sympathy, however, totally obliterates the Ukrainians’ agency, to the point of contradicting the most obvious: not a single day has passed since the Russian invasion began without the Ukrainian president publicly blaming NATO powers for not sending enough weapons, both quantitatively and qualitatively! If NATO imperialist powers were cynically using the Ukrainians to drain their Russian imperialist rival, as that type of incoherent analysis would have it, they would certainly not need to be begged to send more weapons.”
The most thoughtful critical writing on the war—by Anatol Lieven and Keith Gessen, for example; as well as some of the powerful experiential work published by Gessen and his colleagues in the online n+1—is most alive to the tragedy that this onslaught of Great Russian chauvinism is inflicting on the breadth and richness of Russian culture itself. To bomb Kharkov or, if it comes to that, Odessa in the name of gathering Russian lands makes a nihilistic mockery of the battles fought here in World War Two; all the more terrible because the missiles are aimed at cultural kith and kin. Lieven has gone farther than some of his colleagues at the Quincy Institute in calling for a ceasefire and negotiated settlement, in which sanctions would be lifted and neutrality status for Ukraine agreed. There is no sign that Biden is ready for that.
This article, obsessed with NATO and with striking a grand pose before history, and whataboutery, (“Even as Russian forces bombard Ukrainian cities, the Ethiopian Army is shelling Tigray, under military blockade for a year, cut off from electricity, food and medical supplies, with an estimated 50,000–100,000 deaths from direct killings, plus 150,000–200,000 more from starvation. So, too, in Yemen, children are dying of cholera in ruined towns after seven years of near-perpetual air strikes and shelling by the Saudi–uae coalition, with us–uk support.”) is notable for its failure to stand with Ukraine. Or to put it more simply, either you take sides with Ukraine and support their demands for military support, or you oppose them.
Is Great Russian chauvinism and not Russian imperialism the issue? Is there nothing the left can do but than indulge in elegant hand-wring and denouncing Nato, Nato, Nato, over and over again?
Witness this claim, “Some of the old tools—internationalism, class solidarity, a fierce and uncompromising analytical clarity—will be needed to rearm the left against this new round of inter-imperial contention.” One of a series of pieces in the .” If anybody think this should be primarily be seen through the lens of an ‘inter-imperial’ conflict, “great-power contention” (Tony Wood, in the same issue of NLR) in an often fine article) when Russia invaded, they have lost not just their moral compas, but any grasp of reality.
Here is a better stand made at the start of the invasion:
Gilbert Achar. A memorandum on the radical anti‑imperialist position regarding the war in Ukraine
Beyond general condemnation of the Russian invasion, there has also been some confusion in the ranks of the true anti-imperialists about the specific position to take on issues related to the ongoing war. It is important to clarify these issues.
1. It is not enough to call for Russia to stop its attacks and to call for “an immediate ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table”. We did not use such UN-like language when the United States invaded Iraq but demanded the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the aggressors, as we have done in every instance of invasion of one country by another. Likewise, we should demand not only the cessation of the aggression but also the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.
2. The demand of Russian withdrawal applies to every inch of Ukraine’s territory – including the territory invaded by Russia in 2014. When there is a dispute on the belonging of any territory anywhere in the world – such as Crimea or provinces in Eastern Ukraine, in this instance – we never accept that it be solved by naked force and the law of might, but always only through the free exercise by the people concerned of their right to democratic self-determination.
3. We are against calls for direct military intervention of one imperial force against another, be it with boots on the ground or the imposition of a No-Fly Zone from a distance. As a matter of general principle, we are against direct military intervention by any imperialist force anywhere. Asking for one of them to clash with another is tantamount to wishing for a world war between nuclear powers. Moreover, there is no way that such an intervention could be effectuated within the boundaries of international law since most major imperialist powers have a veto right at the UN Security Council. Even if one can easily understand that Ukrainian victims of the aggression may make such calls out of despair, they are nevertheless irresponsible demands.
4. We are in favour of the delivery of defensive weapons to the victims of aggression with no strings attached – in this case to the Ukrainian state fighting the Russian invasion of its territory. No responsible anti-imperialist did call for the USSR or China to enter the war in Vietnam against the US invasion, but all radical anti-imperialists were in favour of increased arms deliveries by Moscow and Beijing to the Vietnamese resistance. To give those who are fighting a just war the means to fight against a much more powerful aggressor is an elementary internationalist duty. Blank opposition to such deliveries is contradictory with basic solidarity with the victims.
5. We have no general attitude on sanctions in principle. We were in favour of sanctions targeting the South-African Apartheid state and we are in favour of sanctions targeting the Israeli settler-colonial occupation. We were against the sanctions imposed on the Iraqi state after it had been destroyed by war in 1991, for they were murderous sanctions serving no just cause but only the subjugation of a state to US imperialism at a quasi-genocidal cost for its population. Western powers have decided a whole set of new sanctions against the Russian state for its invasion of Ukraine. Some of these may indeed curtail the ability of Putin’s autocratic regime to fund its war machine, others may be harmful to the Russian population without much affecting the regime or its oligarchic cronies. Our opposition to the Russian aggression combined with our mistrust of Western imperialist governments means that we should neither support the latter’s sanctions, nor demand that they be lifted.
6. Finally, the most obvious and straightforward issue of all from a progressive perspective is the demand that all borders be opened to the Ukrainian refugees, as they should be for all refugees fleeing war and persecution from whichever part of the world they come. The duty of welcoming and accommodating refugees and the cost of this must be equitably shared by all rich countries. Urgent humanitarian aid should also be provided to the internally displaced persons within Ukraine’s borders.
Solidarity with the Ukrainian people!
On the critics of Achcar – above the SWP – Sacha Ismail writes,
Using “anti-imperialism” to avoid siding with Ukraine
Tendance Coatesy 
An open letter to Phil Hearse on Russia! by Anthony Brain
The majority of anti-Capitalist Resistance like James Burnham in 1940 have openly gone over to Imperialism by calling for NATO to arm Ukraine; for sanctions on Russia; and circulating statements from Imperialist thinktanks calling for “economic modernisation” within Russia. What they mean by “economic modernisation” is destroying any element of central planning and privitising what remains of nationalised industries.
Hearse effectively exposes Francis F’s link to liberalism and Imperialist war crimes. Is Hearse partly in opposition to the ACR’s rapid Imperialist turn? He then capitulates to Imperialism by supporting Putin to be tried by Imperialism. Putin’s crime for Imperialism is that he blocked capitalist restoration and reversed some of the damage the Yeltsin wing of the Stalinist bureaucratic caste had done.
The ACR majority support forces to the right of capitalist restorationist Orban within Hungary who Imperialism does not like because despite being a capitalist has come under pressure of the ruling Stalinist caste to expropriate to a limited extent capitalist firms. For any Marxist it is the ruling class or caste in the degenerate workers’ states which determine its class character and who rules society. Putin is a harderned Stalinist who represents the Stalinist caste. Orban is different to Putin in that he wants to restore capitalism. It is the Stalinist caste which prevents Orban doing this. That alongside workers resistance to market counter-reforms which make their lives worse.
I became a Marxist (which means Leninism-Trotskyism since 1903-5) since I have been 10 because it applied the formal logic of law of identity the similarity and difference of social phenomena and its living contradictions of contending class forces by understanding the laws of dialectical and historical materialism. I wrote a document in the ISG when I was 19 attacking the Stalinphobic majority who could not tell the difference in class character between fascism and Stalinism.
Hearse is saying quite correctly that ruling and middle class liberals support Imperialist wars. Is he digging at the ACR majority? In the past two years I have been writing on my blogs about the Communist Youth radicalisation across Europe. Last weekend I saw that in Bath and Richmond considerable number of 12 to 16 year olds are getting interested in Trotsky by watching a play on Animal Farm. On the French news they were discussing the history of French Presidential candidates since 1969 in the last few days. There are important battles by French workers to defend our democratic rights from fascist attempts to crush the organised working class around Le Pen. In this sort of Trotskyist or fascist polarisation and the danger of nuclear suicide by provoking Russia the workers and middle class need a more serious leadership. In the majority of cases 3rd campism reflects Imperialist social pressures. The ACR majority have drawn the logical conclusion of these class social pressures by joining the Imperialist camp.
Andrew Coates
April 15, 2022 at 3:57 pm
“Putin’s crime for Imperialism is that he blocked capitalist restoration and reversed some of the damage the Yeltsin wing of the Stalinist bureaucratic caste had done”: Oh dear, oh dear! Where to start? So Putin has “blocked capitalist restoration”? You’d laugh if it wasn’t so tragic.
Jim Denham
April 15, 2022 at 7:23 pm
This comes from Marxism List…
Andrew Coates
April 15, 2022 at 8:00 pm
Does Anthony Brain actually exist? Has anyone met him? I always assumed the character was a rather obscure spoof.
Francis
April 16, 2022 at 12:26 pm