Question of Ukraine Conclusions (original) (raw)

Updated - On the assessment and conclusions regarding Ukraine question

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. “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. The political aims of monopoly capitalist in their relations and conflicts will always have an effect in the life and struggle of the working class.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Colours of a revolution. Post-communist society, global capitalism and the Ukraine crisis

Third World Quarterly, 2020

The Ukraine crisis is usually treated either as Russia's return to the oldstyle empire-building (the right) or as a clash of two imperialisms (the left). However, the essence of this crisis can be understood only from the dual perspective of the consequences of the Stalinist degeneration of the Russian Revolution and the fate of the modern global capitalism. The most rotten sections of the Soviet bureaucracy moved the society to capitalism. However, this effort could secure only a peripheral (Ukraine) or at best semi-peripheral (Russia) position in the capitalist world-system as a provider of cheap raw materials. Meanwhile, modern capitalism led to world economic crisis. In these conditions, the capital of the core capitalist countries obviously decided to strengthen its control over the periphery, and Russia's aspirations to secure its domination over the former Soviet space were in the way. To thwart them, Western powers decided to provoke a Ukraine crisis, exploiting Ukrainians' justified indignation at the backwardness and corruption inherent in their own peripheral capitalism. Hence, a study of the properties of the post-Soviet societies and their place in the world hierarchy is the key to understanding the Ukraine crisis.

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."

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.

Western Philosophers and the Russia-Ukraine War (VI

This blog-post is a response to recent comments by Giorgio Agamben and Jurgen Habermas on the Russia-Ukraine war. Following Habermas, it asks the question: Why have the Western European institutions created after World War II to prevent international conflict from escalating out of control been seemingly incapable of stopping the Russia-Ukraine war? The answer to this question, I argue, focuses on the status of sovereign violence in the Westphalian world-system and the UN Charter, which define sovereignty as the monopoly on violence over a designated territory and largely restrict its employment to self-defense, but also permit the exercise of sovereign violence in the international sphere under certain conditions, including the defense of the civil and human rights of ethnic or national minorities who are suffering abuses within another sovereign state's territory. The definition of sovereignty in the Westphalian world-system and the UN Charter, however, is also complicated by the difference between the two paradigms that define sovereignty in the contemporary world: the sovereign state paradigm, which identifies sovereignty with a sovereign monarch (Zelensky or Putin) and a State (Ukraine or Russia); and the popular sovereignty paradigm, which identifies sovereignty with a Nation or People (Ukrainians or Russians). Following these distinctions, I attempt to show that the resolution of the Russia-Ukraine crisis requires both a clarification of the terms of sovereignty over the contested territory of the Donbass and Crimea, and the determination of whether the civilian inhabitants of that contested territory really want to be governed by either Ukraine or Russia. And I argue that it is the second question upon which a satisfactory resolution of the Russia-Ukraine crisis really turns, despite attempts by the West, the US, Russia, and China to determine the resolution of the crisis according to their own self-interests and not those of the civilian inhabitants of Crimea and the Donbass.