Updated - On the assessment and conclusions regarding Ukraine question (original) (raw)
Related papers
Question of Ukraine Conclusions
The summary and conclusions of the discussions over the assessment of question of Ukraine is based on the related articles and responses to critiques. It is important to note that the approach to the war in Ukraine is slowly but surely drawing the demarcation line between Marxism Leninism and Liberalism, between the idealist abstractionist and dialectic approach. Marxist "teaching is not a dogma, but a guide to action, Marx and Engels always used to say, rightly ridiculing the learning and repetition by rote of 'formulas' which at best are only capable of outlining general tasks that are necessarily liable to be modified by the concrete economic and political conditions. It is essential to realize the incontestable truth that a Marxist must take cognizance of real life, of the concrete realities, and must not continue to cling to a theory of yesterday. " (1) Practice of applying general principles and rules as prescription formulas for the determination of the tactics and stands to be taken in a given situation is a betrayal to the sole of Marxism and its dialectics. "In politics, in which sometimes extremely complicated-national and international-relationships have to be dealt with, but it would be absurd to concoct a recipe, or general rule that would serve in all cases. One must have the brains to analyze the situation in each separate case." (2) "Marxism requires of us a strictly exact and objectively verifiable analysis of the relation of classes and of the concrete features peculiar to each historical situation." (3) "Relations of classes" is not limited to the relations between the competing monopoly-capitalist classes, but in their direct relation to the working classes.
Class, values, and revolutions in the Russia-Ukraine war: A response to Chris Hann
Focaal, 2024
Chris Hann's essay serves as a valuable intervention against the tendency to normalize primordial ethnonationalism following the full-scale Russian invasion. It is not immune to the common pitfalls and omissions in the writings of many authors whose point of criticism is aimed primarily at the role of Western elites in the conflict within and around Ukraine. But surely, Hann's core argument contains essential truths. Many social scientists have contributed to the construction of a theoretically shallow, methodologically nationalist, and culturally essentializing narrative. It is a telling fact that someone engaging the discussion has to begin with some basic facts of Ukrainian national identity formation, such as its diversity, or has to remind that the interests of the Western ruling classes in the war do not necessarily coincide with the interests of the Ukrainian subaltern classes, or that those are also likely to diverge from the interests and ideologies of their own comprador middle classes calling themselves “civil society.”
Behind Russia's Invasion in Ukraine: The Clash of Different Modes of Capitalism
Jurnal Politik Global, 2023
This research aims to analyze Russian foreign policy toward Ukraine from 2014 to 2022. It uses a dual logical plural approach from Marxist IR Theory. This approach emphasizes the importance of two systemic logics: capitalism and geopolitics. Since this approach is used in the foreign policy analysis realm, contextualization of the level analysis is needed. In this case, the dual logical plural approach proposes a distinctive description of these levels of analysis. International condition refers to the imperialism of the present world order, domestic factor refers to the development of state capitalism, and actors refer to the alliance of the political elite and capitalist class of state. Based on those distinctive features, this research concludes several crucial points. First, the expansionist economic maneuver of the European Union and the imperialist trick of the US played vital roles in affecting Russia's foreign policy toward Ukraine from 2014-2022. Second, the history of Russian capitalist development, which gave birth to the emergence of regressive Caesarism, also plays a significant role. Third, the development of Ukraine's capitalism and its class dynamics play a central role in navigating Russia or Western state's maneuvers. The dominance of Western Ukraine, which particularly articulates the interests of Ukraine's middle class and the Western state's geopolitical or economic interests, significantly forces Russia to change the nature of its policy from annexation to invasion.
Imperialism in Ukraine particular
“In our time the legitimacy and justice of wars can be approached only from the standpoint of the proletariat and its liberation struggle…Marxists-Leninists adopt a concrete attitude to every war, depending on the class aims pursued by the belligerents. Despite the reactionary and imperialist nature of their regimes, Russia and China are already on the defensive, and their attempts and counterattacks against the efforts of the US-NATO axis to encircle, regress and isolate them serve to preserve the current peace in today's tactical phase and makes the outbreak of a new world war - in which nuclear weapons will also be used- difficult. Therefore, the revolutionary vanguard of the working class and consistent democrats and internationalists, while condemning their imperialist and expansionist policies, they welcome Russia's repelling of the attacks and preventing the preparations of further attacks by the US-NATO axis in the region."
Socialist Internationalism and the Ukraine War
Historical Materialism blog, 2022
This article uses the relationship between Russia and Ukraine to explore what various Marxists have said about socialist internationalism in such a context. It argues that it is essential to support struggles for national liberation or independence against imperialist oppression, which depends on ethnic supremacism to justify that oppression. It also argues that all ethnic definitions of nationhood should be opposed; a socialist programme has to include the rights of ethnic minorities to full equality before the law and their right to have their own language and culture, as well as local and regional self-government, which is important in any democracy but even more so for enclaves where minorities predominate. If socialists are serious about the interests of working people everywhere, then they have to foreground struggles for democracy, which are also struggles against various forms of discrimination and persecution, and this not only in their own countries but in terms of solidarity with the class struggle of workers of all countries. Finally, in a world where hostility to refugees, immigrants and ‘foreigners’ is rampant, internationalists stand for open borders.
Analysis of Ukraine war and forgotten words of Stalin on Imperialism
Analysis of war in Ukraine seems to be largely done with ready-made conclusions such as “imperialist war we do not take sides”, “war is a continuation of Policy in different forms”. These are generally correct statements but not formulas. Especially the latter determines the attitude to the former. The question to be asked and the answer to that question should be studied is: “what kind of policy” each belligerent country was following domestically and internationally, militarily prior to the given war and historically. Without this thorough study the analysis will not be objective but subjective, and thus not a Marxist Leninist one.
The Conflict in Ukraine and Contemporary Imperialism
International Critical Thought, 2016
In this introduction, we provide an overall framing of the articles that follow by placing the Ukraine conflict which today embroils the West in confrontation with Russia, within an historical account of the geopolitical economy of contemporary capitalism and the dynamics of imperialism in the twenty-first century, taking particular account of the decline of US and Western power and the rise of other centres of economic and military power, which are able to resist and contest Western power. We pay particular attention to how today's geopolitical flashpoints, of which Ukraine is among the most critical, emerged to belie post-Cold War expectations of a "peace dividend" and a "unipolar" world, clearly distinguishing the US and the EU roles in these processes. Given the widespread tendency in the West to label Russia "imperialist," particularly after the integration of Crimea into the Russian Federation, we end our discussion with a consideration of this question which concludes that the term, while it continues to be an appropriate description of the pattern of Western actions, is not so for that of Russian ones.
Ukraine and the Academy: One War, Many Theories
China Quarterly of International Strategic Studies, 2024
Leading theorists of major schools of thought in international relations disagree over the root causes of the ongoing war in Ukraine. This paper examines the merits and bases of the theories or explanations provided by each major IR school. It explores the dominant arguments concerning the nature and trajectory of the ongoing war, the prospects for its resolution, and its strategic effects on the international system with a particular emphasis on China. We argue that scholars’ views on these topics are significantly influenced by their theoretical orientations within international relations. Furthermore, strategic thinkers and policymakers, identified as homines theoretici or feminae theoreticae, are themselves deeply influenced by their theoretical understandings of the world, which in turn shape their normative engagement with world affairs. However, the interplay between theoretical perspectives and practical realities hinges on the dynamics of power and objective material conditions on the ground.
Crimea and Ukraine in 2014 are a really clear signal that the potential for open conflict is currently being played in crescendo. There is a broader systemic context in which some of the traditional parameters of international politics are shifting. Territorial disputes and clashes that have a more directly spatial nature, are I think, likely to become more prominent in the next decade than they ever were in the 2000s and 1990s – whether we are talking about the opening Arctic, sovereign disputes in the East China Sea or more trouble ahead in the post-Soviet space. Without dramatizing too much, globalized capitalism, uneven, fractured and oppressive as it is, never offered any guarantees for peace and stability. We’ve just been remembering the Great War of 1914. It was this conflict that generated the Marxist theory of imperialism; please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we’re heading for World War III, but I do believe that continuing to develop the critique of capitalist imperialism is as urgent now as it was then.