Statement of the Union of Communists of Ukraine On the war and the tasks of the working class
6/27/22
The overall assessment of the nature of the war launched under the guise of a special military operation (SVO) by the Union of Communists of Ukraine (UCU) generally coincides with the Statement of the Communist and Workers' Parties of February 24, 2022, supported by the UCU.
In this war, two imperialist groups of world capital clashed on the territory of Ukraine: an international capitalist alliance of countries led by the United States and NATO, and an international capitalist alliance of countries led by Russian state-monopoly capital. A number of the largest capitalist countries (China, India, etc.) have not yet directly entered into the unfolding conflict, but are waiting, assessing the prospects for its development. We agree with the conclusion that the source of this military conflict lies in the counter-revolutionary destruction of socialism in the USSR and the restoration of capitalism in the post-Soviet space.
The Ukrainian bourgeoisie, which grew up on the plunder of the economic resources of the Ukrainian SSR, on the seizure of property from the overwhelming majority of the population, as well as in Russia, quickly concentrated this property in the hands of a few oligarchic groups to the level of sectoral monopolies and, following the country's economy, privatized "the state power. The contradictory position of these oligarchic groups consisted in the fact that they tried to limit as much as possible the participation in the concentration of private property in the country of both Russian and Western capital. At the same time, the big bourgeoisie tried to actively cooperate with the Russian oligarchs in economic cooperation in order to obtain high profits through access to Russian energy resources at fairly low prices, and to flirt with the international capital of the West, since the resulting profits were placed in Western banks and in private property in Western countries. .
For the ideological justification of the relative demarcation with the "East" and "West", the Ukrainian oligarchic bourgeoisie just needed the ideology of radical bourgeois nationalism, which also corresponded to the interests of Western countries (especially after the Orange Revolution organized by them in 2004) with its anti-Russian orientation. It was then that Bandera and Shukhevych began to be heroized in the public consciousness of Ukrainians.
For the working class of Ukraine and the broad proletarian masses of the city and countryside, the restoration of capitalism turned into a colossal narrowing and restriction of its rights in the process of de-industrialization of the country. But in conditions of political and ideological disorientation, the working class, trade unions and leftist parties were only capable of rear-guard action. The discrediting of socialism by bourgeois propaganda pushed the Ukrainian proletariat to narrow its struggle to economic tasks only and pushed the most qualified strata to migrate abroad in search of better wages. The UCU directly participated in these class battles of the nineties and zero years, striving to preserve the international proletarian revolutionary tradition of class struggle and trying to counteract the political opportunism that grew on the degradation of the working class in the communist and leftist movement in Ukraine.
The immediate prerequisite for the growing confrontation between Russia and NATO countries on the territory of Ukraine was the global financial, commercial and industrial crisis of 2008 and its consequences. The long-term stagnation of the world economy and all the efforts of the leading capitalist countries to shift the consequences of this crisis onto the working class and the broad proletarian strata, as well as the dependent capitalist countries, have shown that there is no economic way out of this crisis within the framework of capitalism. To overcome this crisis, the leading capitalist countries, led by the United States, switched to direct robbery of a number of countries by unleashing for this a series of coups d'état through "color revolutions", local wars under the guise of "democratization" of countries. This led to a large-scale aggravation of international contradictions and to the beginning of the re-formation of imperialist alliances, an aggravation of the confrontation between these alliances, including on the territory of Ukraine, as well as to the growth of radical nationalism in its Nazi and fascist manifestations.
The coming to power of monopoly oligarchic groups led by Yanukovych in 2010, who were perceived as pro-Russian bourgeoisie, on the one hand strengthened the cooperation of Russian and Ukrainian monopolies, but only to the extent that allowed the Ukrainian oligarchs to maintain control over the economy and property in the country. On the other hand, Yanukovych recruited his political adviser experts in electoral technologies from the United States and Great Britain, such as Manafort, who recommended, on the basis of "opinion polls", to build an election campaign for re-election for a second term so that in the second round his opponent would be the leader of the Nazi party "Svoboda" (renamed social-nationalist party) Tyagnybok. As a result, it was with the money of allegedly “pro-Russian” oligarchs that Nazi groups began to grow from marginal groups to the level of political parties. They were given the opportunity to win elections to local councils in the western regions and to get their deputies into the Ukrainian parliament. For this purpose, Yanukovych did not even cancel the decrees of his predecessor Yushchenko on awarding the titles of "Hero of Ukraine" to Bandera and Shukhevych.
But Yanukovych's "advisers" played a different card behind his back. Under his leadership, pro-Western oligarchic groups, with the support of US and EU imperialism, carried out a coup d'état in 2014. The pro-fascist and Nazi organizations supported by them not only turned out to be the striking force of this coup d'etat, but were armed with the new oligarchic power and in the form of paramilitary "volunteer battalions" became its striking force.
The internal political significance of the Maidan 2014 coup d'etat was the completion of the counter-revolutionary destruction of the consequences of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, which gave the people of Ukraine the first national state in the form of the Soviet socialist state. The post-Maidan authorities with particular hatred destroyed everything that was connected with the victory of the revolutionary workers’ and communist movement on the territory of Ukraine and with the establishment of Soviet power, and also glorified those who were defeated and expelled during that revolution and civil war: starting from Petlyura and Skoropadsky and ending with Bandera, Shukhevych and other enemies of the working people of Soviet Ukraine.
The coup d'état marked the beginning of a civil war in Ukraine between supporters of the new nationalist government and its opponents, which led to the secession of Crimea and its absorption by Russia as a result of a referendum, as well as to the formation of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (LDNR), which fell into a situation of prolonged armed confrontation with Kyiv political power. And although even the participants in this confrontation did not perceive it as a class one, but rather as an interethnic one, it was characteristic that all the oligarchic groups supported the post-Maidan government and, through the hands of their deputies in parliament, gave this government the appearance of legitimacy. And not a single oligarch, even from the Yanukovych group, went over to the side of the LDNR created during the civil war.
In terms of their social composition, especially in terms of the backbone of the armed formations, the republics of Donbass were proletarian in nature. And in their political form, they were bourgeois republics and simultaneously expressed the interests of both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, who did not accept the radical anti-Russian nationalism of the post-Maidan authorities and its pro-Western course.
Since the formation of the LDNR, the UCU, given their internal inconsistency, has been involved in helping the workers and communist organizations of these republics in the formation of their ideological class position.
The bourgeois authorities of Russia in relation to the LDNR took a controversial position: on the one hand, it provided military and economic assistance to the republics of Donbass, and on the other hand, it did not recognize them politically and did not include them in the Russian Federation, like Crimea, but went to recognize the legitimacy of the puppet pro-fascist regime Turchynov-Poroshenko-Zelensky, to sign the Minsk agreements with this regime, which did not bring peace to the LDNR, and made the war a latent state on the line of demarcation for eight years, allowing the Ukrainian authorities to create a strong and Nazi-motivated army, which became a threat not only to the LDNR, but also to Russia itself.
The internal inconsistency of the position of the Russian bourgeois state in relation to the LDNR and the post-Maidan authorities is due to the fact that its economic interests were closely intertwined with both the capital of the Western countries and the Ukrainian oligarchic capital. Russian politicians scolded the “Maidan authorities”, and Russian oligarchs, together with the Ukrainian oligarchs, profited from the use of pipelines through the territory of Ukraine (the ammonia pipeline from Tolyatti to the Odessa port plant stopped its work only on February 24, 22), resale of Donbass coal to Ukraine according to the scheme “ Rotterdam ”, resale of metallurgical and other products.
In the same way, the Ukrainian oligarchs cursed the “Russian aggressor” through their politicians, and continued to extract joint profits. It is the economic interests of the Russian bourgeoisie that explain, first of all, why in the LDNR they so actively opposed the demands of the workers of Donbass for the nationalization of enterprises owned by Ukrainian oligarchs, why the military operation against the pro-fascist puppet regime in Ukraine was postponed. And only secondarily is this due to the need to complete the rearmament of the Russian army.
The real reasons for the SVO lie in the fact that the Russian oligarchic bourgeoisie has realized that it will not be able to economically overcome the consequences of the global financial and economic crisis. It decided, finally, to sacrifice the small share of profits which was derived from cooperation with the Ukrainian oligarchs and with the capital of the West, for the sake of redistributing spheres of influence in the global economy and capturing new markets for her goods, as well as counteracting the growing efforts of the NATO countries led by the United States to seizing the territory of Russia and gaining access to its raw materials.
This war is not in the interests of the "Russians", "protection of the Russian-speaking population", "denazification" of the Ukrainian state, but in the interests of the Russian capital, which felt the danger and the need to create new international conditions to ensure further opportunities for profit to increase their capital. This war does not embody or protect any interests of Russian, Tatar, Chuvash, Yakut workers and workers of all other nationalities of the Russian Federation.
The puppet regime in Ukraine is participating in this war in the interests of the Ukrainian oligarchs, who have made themselves completely dependent on the big capital of the West and NATO, who have turned the Ukrainian army into an advanced military detachment of the Western bourgeoisie.
The war is not for the “Ukrainian nation”, not for the “Ukrainian language and culture”, not even for “European values”. This is a war for the united interests of the Ukrainian and international bourgeoisie, which coincide in their desire to destroy the economic and political power of the Russian bourgeoisie.
This war does not protect any interests and rights of Ukrainian workers. Both Ukrainian and Russian workers in this war have the right and duty only to go to the front and die so that one of the groups of the world bourgeoisie will defeat the other and get more monopoly rights to oppress the workers, both of their own country and of the defeated countries.
Thus, the military conflict, which began in the form of civil confrontation and civil war on the territory of Ukraine, with the beginning of the NMD develops into an imperialist conflict - it becomes the beginning of an imperialist world war. With the beginning of the NMD, the parties to the conflict actually become: on the one hand, the Russian bourgeois state, on the other, the NATO bloc, waging war with the hands of the Ukrainian army, providing it with weapons, ammunition, intelligence, planning military operations with the participation of its military "advisers", training the army , information propaganda, cybernetic support and so on.
Secondly, the goals of warfare are changing. If at the first stage of the civil conflict the Ukrainian regime set as its goal the restoration of state control over the Ukrainian territories where this control is lost, then at the second stage it is the destruction of Russia as a condition for the existence of Ukraine.
The Russian bourgeois regime at the first stage declared its goal only to support the LDNR in the conflict with the Kyiv regime, and at the second stage it was to ensure international conditions for the capitalist development of Russia and overcome NATO opposition for this. It is only in this context that the goals of "denazification" and "demilitarization" declared by the Russian state acquire real meaning.
The demand for the "denazification" of Ukraine is gradually developing into a demand for the "denazification" of the Baltic States, Poland, Europe and the entire Western world, because "they are all infected with the Nazism of the West." Similarly, the demand for "demilitarization" will expand in the same direction as the military conflict develops. In fact, both of these demands are only a cover for the real imperialist aims of the war.
The development of the military conflict on the territory of Ukraine has shown that its leading trend is its development into an open clash between two imperialist blocs: Russia and its allies, and NATO. This means the escalation of the war into a nuclear conflict and the emergence of a real threat of the annihilation of mankind. It is quite possible that the danger of nuclear war rising to its full height may lead to compromises between the opposing sides of the conflict. But this, in any case, will be a temporary compromise in favor of one of the parties, which will only be a respite for a new resumption of struggle and hostilities.
For the working class of Ukraine, this imperialist war bears the most tragic consequences. It is on the shoulders of the workers that the role of "cannon fodder" and the inevitability of death during hostilities, mass impoverishment, unemployment, complete restriction of rights and freedoms for the sake of protecting the interests of the Ukrainian big bourgeoisie, oligarchs and the interests of the bourgeoisie of the West in the destruction and robbery of Russia, the seizure of its natural resources. This will inevitably be accompanied by the destruction and seizure of Ukrainian industrial and natural resources, including in the event of Russia's success. The same fate awaits the overwhelming majority of the Ukrainian petty bourgeoisie.
The big bourgeoisie has already bought off their children from the war and taken them abroad, just as they took their capital. But this is not the main thing: the big bourgeoisie is cashing in on the war under Zelensky’s rule just as it was cashing in under power and with the participation of Poroshenko: theft of finances, making money on the resale of weapons, on the supply of uniforms, food to the army, on repairs, on humanitarian aid, and so on. In the war, while the mobilized ones are forced to equip and provide food to relatives, friends and volunteers, which is clearly not enough, the bourgeoisie makes billions of dollars. As in peacetime, but even more brazenly, the bourgeoisie grows rich on the bones of the working class!
The consequences of this imperialist war will be just as dire for the working class of Russia and the countries of the Russian bloc. They strike catastrophically at the proletarian masses of all countries of the world. A world war cannot but have global consequences: hunger, impoverishment, unemployment, falling wages are already sweeping the planet. But the war will draw the armies of many countries into the fighting, turning their workers into "cannon fodder"!
The consequence of the world imperialist war that began on the territory of Ukraine will not be getting rid of the global financial and economic crisis, but its catastrophic deepening, which, in turn (as it happened in the past), will lead to revolutionary situations in a number of countries where contradictions aggravate the most. Under the conditions of international economic and political integration, the development of revolutionary situations will lead to the formation of chains of revolutionary uprisings.
The UCU sees the way out of the imperialist war for the working class not in abstract calls for peace and disarmament (which, at best, can only give a delay in the war for the parties to accumulate forces for the sake of an even more violent clash), but in the need to eliminate capitalism as a parasitic and destructive a social system in which capital competition inevitably leads to crises and wars.
In the struggle against war as a struggle against the power of capital unleashing wars, we put forward the task of fighting the capitalists in each of the belligerent states.
We set ourselves the goal of achieving the defeat of the Ukrainian puppet regime in Ukraine.
We appeal to the workers armed with this regime to direct their weapons against the power of the bourgeoisie in Ukraine and turn the imperialist war for the interests of the bourgeoisie into a civil war of the working class against its bourgeoisie in order to destroy its capitalist domination in the course of the communist revolution.
We appeal to the Russian workers as a fraternal class, bearing all the hardships of the war on their shoulders, also suffering from impoverishment, unemployment, the elimination of fundamental rights and freedoms: seek the defeat of the bourgeois power in Russia, deploy weapons against the Russian oligarchs and their political minions. We are ready to fight together with you to turn the imperialist war into a class war against the power of capital and for the communist revolution.
We appeal to the workers of the countries that are members of NATO: to stop the threat of annihilation of mankind in a nuclear clash of imperialist war is possible only in the struggle not for an abstract peace, but for the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie of their countries, unleashing these wars and profiting from them. Strive for the defeat of the bourgeois governments and the NATO bloc in this war, put forward the task of turning the war between nations into a war between classes, turn the weapons produced by the hands of the workers not against the workers of other countries, but against the capitalists of your own country, against their power.
Capitalism has existed for two centuries as an international system of bourgeois domination and oppression of the workers. This worldwide system of exploitation, the source of crises and wars, can only be ended by uniting the efforts of the struggle of the workers at the international level in the course of the international communist revolution, which grows out of the chains of revolutionary situations. The only thing we can oppose to bourgeois nationalism (and its forms - chauvinism and fascism), which pushes peoples together in war, is proletarian internationalism.
We understand the complexity and danger of the tasks put forward, which will inevitably cause repressions from the bourgeois political regimes. Therefore, in order to set and implement such tasks, workers' and communist organizations will need to develop, along with legal, illegal forms of class struggle. The UCU has been forced to conduct its work in illegal forms since 2014.
Many workers' and communist organizations may find these anti-war tasks overwhelming because of their organizational weakness and lack of influence on the working class. But historical experience shows that the correct and honest formulation of the tasks of the working class in the conditions of war - real, and not momentary tasks - may not give success immediately, but will give a gain in the conditions of the growing revolutionary situation.
Since the task of destroying capitalist social relations is an international task, the importance of international coordination of the actions of workers and communist parties is growing, including in the joint development of tasks for the struggle against the imperialist war of the 21st century for the sake of uniting the international struggle against this war for the communist reorganization of society and world peace. .
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
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