Capitalism and imperialism
Ukrainian civilians in their post-Euromaidan difficulties, choosing only to fund Ukraine when such support could be used against Russia. Clausewitz’s assertion that the primary ‘object of fighting is… simply the destruction of [the enemy’s] forces’ is relevant here. The USA’s primary interest in Ukraine at the moment is the depletion of Russian forces and resources, so as to prevent them from being able to assert their power in future. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made this clear when he said, ‘we want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine . . . we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that [military] capability’. For this reason, as Ukrainska Pravda wrote, ‘even if Ukraine is ready to sig n some agreements on guarantees with Putin, [western powers ] are not’. This conflict, for the USA, is not about protecting the Ukrainians’ welfare or their deserved sovereignty, but about teaching a lesson to Russia, and they are willing to fund Ukraine to fight for America’s sphere of influence, to the last drop of Ukrainian blood. Bankrolling this war – to the tune of $3.4bn at the time of writing (the USA has contributed, therefore, more than any other nation, by Zelensky’s admission) – means a spike in energy prices for their own workers, putting them in financial distress, but also driving up wheat prices, at significant cost to many but, especially, to Egyptian and Lebanese workers who rely on Russo-Ukrainian wheat. This is a war between capitalist nations over their power, their spheres of influence, and the price is worth it for the western bourgeois states who don’t care about the working class.
Tsarist imperialism
To understand Putin’s regime, it is important to put it in the context of Tsarist imperialism. It was not without reason that Lenin identified Tsarist Russia as a major imperialist power, even though that characterization does not quite fit Lenin’s own definition of imperialism with which I started this essay. Russia, at the time, was economically undeveloped and, mostly, still feudal. Tsarist Russia exported not a single kopeck of capital. They had no great industry or finance capital to spread elsewhere, like Britain or Germany did. Rather, Russia’s imperialism was based on territorial expansion, into Poland, central Asia, etc. Tsarist Russia was both a victim of economic imperialism and imperialist in its own right, which is why Lenin identified it as an imperialist nation in his writings. As said at the beginning of the essay, t his is the importance of looking at the world as it is, and forming our impressions from that, rather than matching things to rigid definitions. This is what dialectical materialism is about – the fact that the world and forces of capital are in flux, and that we must adapt our ideas to understand and tackle it best. Imperialism is territorial expansion; it is financial expansion; it is based on spheres of influence. From this, the most key lesson is that imperialism is not a precise set of behaviours, but something that can be applied in different ways depending on the character of the state and on its financial and material conditions.
Putin’s regime
Contemporary Russia is a mafia gangster state, run by a strongman. This is a widely-accepted statement, but doesn’t go far enough. Russia is also a capitalist state, run by a fi nancial oligarchy, mafia gangsters, who loot state enterprises and use the political system to protect their financial interests. This is the root of the problem: capitalism and the existence of oligarchy. Because Russia is run by Putin, a
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