The December 2 “peace” talks between the U.S. and Russia over the war in Ukraine exposed the accelerating decline of U.S. imperialism on the world stage. Even though State-Terrorist-in-Chief Donald Trump’s 28-point proposal favored Russia’s demands, his envoys walked away empty-handed (CNN, 12/2). For the indefinite future, the capitalist bosses’ slaughter of workers will continue across Ukraine, while the U.S. rulers blunder on for all their rivals to see.
From the Congo to the South China Sea, from Venezuela to Ukraine, the inter-imperialist competition between the U.S., China, and Russia is moving headlong toward World War Three. The split within the U.S. ruling class continues to intensify. Fronted by Trump, the more isolationist “Fortress America,” Small Fascist faction of capitalist bosses want to withdraw U.S. imperialist support for NATO and for far-flung armed conflicts in places like Ukraine. By contrast, the finance capital internationalist wing, the Big Fascist U.S. bosses and their allies in the European Union, are trying to preserve their multilateral alliances and their global imperialist domination. Regardless of which faction wins out, the international crisis of capitalism will force the bosses to turn to war and fascism. Only international working-class solidarity and communist revolution can smash their genocidal system once and for all.
Liberal slaughter in Ukraine
The horrific war between the U.S.- and EU-backed Ukrainian forces and Russian imperialism is just one more example of the capitalist bosses’ criminal disregard for working-class life. Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian workers have been killed, wounded or captured. Schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings are routinely targeted for military strikes (CFR, 11/25). On the other side, it’s estimated that more than one million Russian workers have been killed, while their rulers’ austere war economy keeps squeezing their livelihoods at home (Economist, 12/2).
This violent struggle traces its roots to the end of the Cold War, when the U.S. imperialists welcomed countries formerly within Russia’s orbit into NATO. Ukraine– strategically located on the Black Sea, brimming with gas pipelines into western Europe, rich in mineral resources–was a prize the Russian bosses wouldn’t give up without a fight.
In 2013, after a section of Russia-leaning Ukrainian bosses scuttled a deal to integrate into the EU economy, pro-West bosses, including the CIA-connected “Color Revolution” billionaire George Soros, instigated an uprising. Under President Barack Obama, U.S. imperialism funneled resources and cash into Ukraine to pull the population closer to the orbit of Western “democracy” (Black Agenda Report, 2/22/22). Then Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in its first military incursion into Europe since World War Two. The current war inevitably followed. Trying desperately to deter Russian imperialism and hold together the failing U.S.-led liberal world order, President Joe Biden delivered tens of billions in military support to Ukraine.
At this moment, with the Trump wing in power, the main wing liberals are reduced to mourning the U.S. retreat and its consequences. As a New York Times Op Ed piece noted after the Moscow meeting: “The era of Pax Americana may soon be drawing to a close. From then on it will be every region, or country, for itself, against emboldened and avaricious adversaries” (NYT, 12/2).
Retrenchment en route to war
Trump’s pullback from NATO and his flurry of bogus peace deals in Palestine-Israel, the Congo, and Ukraine signal a fundamental shift for U.S. imperialism. In the face of growing inroads by China in Latin America, the Small Fascist wing is focused on fortifying control of the U.S. sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere. In the past year alone, Trump has threatened to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland by force while surrounding oil-rich Venezuela with thousands of troops (NYT, 11/17).
In Europe, the most ominous aspect of U.S. imperialism’s retreat from the global stage is that it foreshadows bigger military showdowns. U.S. unreliability has led the EU to invest more in its military and to mandate military enlistment by youth and outright conscription (NYT, 11/24).
Coupled with Russian drones and missiles flying close to EU borders, a wider conflict looms on the horizon. As in the U.S., a section of EU bosses is building openly racist movements to scapegoat immigrant workers and build nationalism for war (NYT, 12/3).
Nationalism is deadly for the working class
Through the long siege of bloodshed across Ukraine, nationalism has been crucial for the bosses on both sides to win workers to kill their fellow workers for the profits of the capitalist class. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ships workers to their death so that he and his corrupt cronies can score lucrative business deals to rebuild when the smoke clears (Scheerpost, 1/27/23). Russian soldiers are mowed down in the hundreds of thousands–supposedly for the “greater empire,” but in fact to enable Russian billionaires to control Ukrainian resources.
Workers must reject all forms of nationalism in favor of international solidarity. A mass communist PLP with deep ties with workers and in the military can advance our common struggle and turn it into a revolutionary movement. Our Party can wield the ultimate weapon–working-class consciousness–to strike at the heart of this murderous system.
No peace under capitalism – fight for communism
To paraphrase the communist poet Bertolt Brecht, when the rulers speak of peace, it’s time to prepare for war. As dialectical materialists, we know there can be no lasting peace under capitalism. The system’s hard-wired logic of accumulation, competition, and maximum profit requires racism, environmental destruction, exploitation, and war.
Our Party’s task remains constant: to expose capitalism and all of its deadly contradictions while offering our revolutionary alternative to the workers of the world. For our class, peace will come only when we crush capitalism with international revolution. Fight for communism! Join PLP!
