As the capitalist bosses behind President Donald Trump push to shut off the spigot of arms to Ukraine in its war with Russia, an 80-year-old partnership between U.S. imperialism and Europe is fraying to the breaking point. Trump’s threat to make a Russia-friendly deal with Vladimir Putin (and/or extort Ukraine’s mineral wealth), his plan to pull 20,000 U.S. troops out of Europe (Stars and Stripes, 1/24), his open hostility toward NATO—all are signs of the deep split in a decaying U.S. ruling class. On one side are the Small Fascists backing Trump, the Fortress America wing that hijacked the Republican Party and has no interest in paying for a massive worldwide military footprint—much less a distant ground war with U.S. troops. On the other side are the Big Fascists of U.S. finance capital, the multinational banks and oil companies that seek to hang on to their failing empire as long as they can, at any and all costs to the international working class.
One side wants to protect and strengthen a U.S. sphere of influence, from Greenland to the Panama Canal; the other looks to contain the global rise of their inter-imperialist rivals, China and Russia. One side is led by open racists who scapegoat immigrants and Black and Latin workers for the failings of the profit system; the other by liberal racists who use identity politics and DEI initiatives to weaken class struggle. But make no mistake: No matter how Ukraine plays out, the international crisis of capitalism will keep sparking blood-soaked conflicts and rising fascist movements the world over. No matter which U.S. bosses ultimately prevail, or which maneuvers they choose, they’ll be forced to turn to full-blown fascism. They’ll need fascism to discipline their own class, put down workers’ rebellions, and prepare for World War Three. There are no good bosses! In this period of frightening instability and grave danger, the workers of the world have only one solution: communist revolution, led by the international Progressive Labor Party (PLP).
Why Ukraine matters
According to U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, Ukraine is a “gold mine” with $12 trillion worth of critical minerals, which the West “can’t afford to lose” (“Face the Nation,” CBS, 6/10/24). There is plenty of oil and wheat in Ukraine, too, plus a broad industrial base and coveted warm-weather ports. Perhaps most important, since the two countries share a 1200-mile border, a NATO-aligned Ukraine poses a security threat to Russia.
How did the current war start? To understand the history of this area of the world, we must go back to the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, and a stated U.S. commitment to exclude the former Soviet republics from NATO. But there’s no honor among imperialist thieves, and ten former Warsaw Pact nations were brought into NATO, effectively encircling Russia. In 2002, further heightening tensions, the U.S. withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Imperialist Russia pushed back by intervening in the Transnistria War in Moldova in the early 1990s and in a civil war in Georgia in 2008. In Ukraine, tensions escalated In 2014, when the U.S. bosses organized a coup to install a pro-U.S. president.
The so-called Euromaidan movement relied on anti-Russia propaganda propagated by NATO, which promoted Ukraine’s tilt toward Western Europe and its application to join the European Union. The U.S. imperialists funded homegrown Ukrainian fascists as well as NGOs and CIA front groups like the National Endowment for Democracy. Russia countered by courting workers in Ukraine with cheaper gas prices and more open borders with Russia. The Russian bosses bribed their way into control of the contested Donbas region, which broke away from Ukraine in 2014.
That set the stage for Russia’s support of an eastern Ukraine “resistance,” the 2014 seizure of Crimea, and today’s three-year-old Russian invasion and Ukraine’s U.S.-funded military response under ex-president Joe Biden, which has badly faltered. Despite a terrible toll in Russian military casualties, the Big Fascists’ attempt to weaken Russia by grinding them down in Ukraine has been a stunning failure. The U.S. has become more isolated while Russia and China have drawn closer. The BRICS coalition led by the two U.S. rivals has grown stronger. The bosses’ old liberal world order is in tatters in both the U.S. and Europe, where openly fascist parties are flourishing. While all capitalist rulers are in crisis, the U.S. is facing a steeper relative decline.
Turn the guns around!
Under capitalism, ever deadlier wars are the grim future for the working class. But workers have no stake in these fights. Communists know better than to support either side in any imperialist conflicts, which at bottom are cynical competitions to exploit the working class. PLP says: No war but class war!
Only an international communist movement can end imperialist slaughter for all time. We must build a Party to lead this fight and help the working class build a better future, free of war, racism, sexism, and exploitation. Join us! We have a world to win!
