TOWARD A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF IMPERIALISM’S WAR WITH RUSSIA

The US NATO Alliance has taken yet another step to bolster its presence in Europe. 5,000 tons of military ammunition were shipped to Germany via the US on Feb. 22nd to strengthen NATO’s military capacity. This occurred at the same time that NATO announced US participation in the “Anaconda” operations scheduled in Poland this June. The military exercise will involve 25,000 troops from more than 20 countries. This recent escalation is one of many in recent years that confirm NATO’s plan to invade Russia in the near or interim future.

When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, imperialism victoriously announced the “end of history.” The US-NATO alliance believed that its corporate masters would rule the world indefinitely following the destabilization of the Soviet bloc. Russia came under the control of financial oligarchs. The nation’s assets were sold away, leading to the death of millions and the misery of millions more. But this changed dramatically when Vladimir Putin took the reins from capitalist-running dog Boris Yeltsin as Russian head of state in 1999.

Domestically, Putin immediately worked to restrain the oligarchy’s control over the economy. Prominent corporate stooges were jailed and national investment in social welfare increased. The Russian Federation nationalized the energy industry to raise the standards of living of ordinary Russians. Since Putin came to power, poverty in Russia has decreased from 29 percent to 11 percent. This is a marked difference from the chronic homelessness and extreme poverty that characterized post-Soviet, Yeltsin era rule.

Russia’s newfound economic stability angered US and Western imperialism. Imperialist bankers and multinational corporations hoped that the fall of socialism in the former Soviet Union would bring Russia’s vast resources under their permanent control. Furthermore, the overthrow of the Soviet Union was supposed to isolate the worldwide struggles for sovereignty and independence from imperialism. And for a moment, the Yeltsin period showed every indication that Russia would become a vassal state of the West. Putin’s domestic reforms placed Russia on the opposite path.

But perhaps US and Western imperialism’s greatest concern since the rise of Putin has been Russia’s foreign policy. Putin’s defiance of US-Western imperialism began when Russia intervened in Chechnya to defeat imperialist-backed terrorists. This marked the first of many instances of Russian opposition to imperialism’s proxy wars and encroachments on its borders. In the last two years alone, Russia has democratically absorbed Crimea into the Russian Federation and protected the state of Syria in its fight against imperialist-backed terrorists. Russian foreign policy has set back imperialism’s plans for domination in the Middle East.

The US has long entered the imperialist stage of capitalist development where banks and monopolies dictate nation-state wars for colonial possessions. Imperialism’s central plan is to destabilize and divide Russia. Once divided, imperialism hopes to transform Russia into a puppet of the West. Putin has other plans. Under Putin’s leadership, the Russian nation has placed itself at the forefront of the movement for a multi-polar world no longer dominated by the US. This can be seen in projects such as the Eurasian union, Russia’s increased relations with China, and Putin’s forgiveness of Cuba’s debt to Russia as a gesture of solidarity.

The rise of Russia as a global power has coincided with imperialism’s decline. The corporate media has countered with an endless campaign to demonize Russia as a whole and Putin in particular. Putin has been called corrupt, authoritarian, and more dangerous than ISIS. These infectious imperialist lies have corrupted the US and Western anti-war movements and placed the world in a dangerous situation. US and Western imperialism, through its proxy states of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, are on the brink of World War. Turkey has violated the recent ceasefire agreement in Syria and is dangerously close to aiming its line of fire at the Russian military. Saudi Arabia has also made preparations to invade Syria in the near future.

The US and Western anti-war movement is, at the moment, unprepared to challenge these dangerous developments. Some fractions of the movement believe that Russia is just another imperialist state in competition with Washington. Russia is indeed a capitalist country and Putin is no anti-capitalist. Putin has praised the free-market, denounced Russian revolutionary V.I. Lenin, and made Moscow a fertile ground for billionaires. Yet without Russia’s assistance to Syria, imperialism would have destroyed another independent state and brought the world closer to a global conflict unseen in human history. And while some criticize Russia’s relations with Israel, Russia has also built critical alliances with Iraq, Syria, and Iran that have thwarted the aligned interests of the Gulf monarchies, Israel, and the West.

Whether Russia is an imperialist country or not is the wrong question because it fails the test of history. The Putin era exemplifies the complicated character of post-Soviet Russia and the intensifying crisis of imperialism. Putin’s leadership rescued Russia from imperial servitude and an oligarchy that attacked its own people in 1993 to wrestle control away from Soviet forces. He has fought for the sovereignty of all nations, a holdover of the internationalism inherent in Soviet socialism. A deeper analysis of the volatile post-Soviet global situation reveals that Russia’s current course of development is a product of growing anti-imperialist sentiment around the world. Imperialism has responded with an all out attack to weaken and destabilize the Russian Federation.

Anti-imperialists are correct to fight for a socialist future but incorrect to do so with methods that benefit imperialism. The US and West are the epicenter of global imperialism. Global imperialism has pillaged and plundered the world for over a century. The system is now in an intractable crisis that threatens to spark a World War III scenario. Russia is the primary target of imperialism’s path of destruction. The protection of Russia’s sovereignty is absolutely critical to future of socialism in Russia and anywhere else in the world, including of what remains of the socialist bloc. Should Russia fall, the world would lose one of the last lines of defense against unmitigated US plunder. If the world is ever going to take US and Western anti-imperialists seriously, they must become soldiers for self-determination and strategically ally themselves with Russia against the common enemy of US and Western Empire.