Russian Imperialism Strikes Back

Frontal engagements of large formations of forces at the strategic and operational level are gradually becoming a thing of the past. Long-distance, contactless actions against the enemy are becoming the main means of achieving combat and operational goals...
—Valerie Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation (2013)

Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism.
—Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin (1917)

As the capitalist bosses of the U.S., Russia and China intensify their fight over global resources, from Eastern Europe and the Middle East to Africa and Latin America, their lethal competition is taking on a more complex form. Known as “hybrid war” or “non-linear war” or “new generation warfare,” these inter-imperialist conflicts are mostly indirect and undeclared—and far less expensive than a conventional ground war. They use a broad mix of elements, from special operations assassins and private-sector mercenaries to cyberattacks and social media propaganda.
In the South China Sea, Beijing is building artificial islands and making territorial claims to fend off both regional rivals and President Barack Obama’s “pivot” to Asia. The U.S., while still relying on the threat of NATO’s brute force in Europe, used a computer virus to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program; it funded “color revolutions” to undermine pro-Russian regimes in Eastern Europe.
Meanwhile, the “Gerasimov Doctrine,” named after Russia’s top strategic military planner, combines “low-end, hidden state involvement with high-end, direct, even braggadocio superpower involvement”—most significantly in Ukraine and Syria (Association of the U.S. Army, 5/20). Dealing from a position of economic and military weakness versus the U.S. and—increasingly—China, clobbered by falling oil prices, President Vladimir Putin is using “a number of equalizers,” wrote Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank.
These will range from increased reliance on nuclear deterrence to the creation of local balances in Moscow’s favor; from swift decision-making and bold action, including the use of force, to ambiguity and hybrid operations (3/18).
Russian Bosses Go on Offensive
In its backyard in Ukraine, Russia responded to the U.S.-backed coup in February 2014 by engineering a secession referendum that paved the way for Crimea’s annexation by Russia. Putin has covertly funneled fighters and tanks to aid separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, and a recent troop buildup along the border threatens a fragile ceasefire (Financial Times, 7/19).
Putin has out-maneuvered Obama in Syria, where Russia enlisted the U.S. bosses in an alliance against the upstart imperialist Islamic State (ISIS)—and blunted the U.S. campaign against pro-Russia President Bashar al-Assad. While massacring hundreds of civilians a month with airstrikes, the Russian rulers have secured their Mediterranean naval base at Tartus and their airbase in Latakia. They’ve become major players without big investments of money and troops.
But make no mistake: Any cooperation between imperialists is tactical and temporary. Hybrid war ploys may gain one set of bosses a short-term advantage, but can they consolidate control over the oil-rich Middle East? A rising China and a resurgent Russia—as well as shaky regional powers like Turkey, Brazil, and India, where bosses will sell their allegiance to the highest bidder—make the world situation increasingly unstable.
For the international working class, sharpening ruling-class rivalries will inevitably lead to mass slaughter and devastation—to World War Three. At the same time, they will present an opportunity to smash the capitalists’ rotten, racist, sexist system for good. As Lenin said, it is the job of communists in all countries to turn imperialist war into class war and lead the working class to seize state power. Regardless of the rulers’ shifting strategies and tactics, that revolutionary task remains before Progressive Labor Party today.
End of an American Era?
In 1991, after decades of decay into state capitalism and all the inequalities and abuses of the profit system, the Soviet Union self-destructed. That event ended the Cold War, the post-World War II contest for world supremacy between U.S. and Russian imperialism, and marked, and the dawned the so-called American Era. As the world’s single superpower, the U.S. essentially cornered the market on global military intervention, from the two wars in the Persian Gulf to the invasions of Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Libya. NATO, the military alliance that projects U.S. power in Europe, absorbed a dozen former Soviet Republics; the U.S. expanded its sphere of influence eastward to the Russian border.
Then along came Putin. After taking power in 2000, he coerced Russia’s ravaging gangster capitalists to accept more centralized control. He’s used anti-worker ideas—nationalism and patriotism—to divert workers’ attention from worsening living conditions and Russia’s ongoing domestic oil price crisis. In 2014, his power base secured, Putin openly challenged U.S. dominance in Ukraine and Crimea. As Trenin noted:
This move effectively ended a quarter century of cooperative relations among great powers and ushered in an era of intense competition between them. Two years on, Moscow continues to be in defiance. The conflict with the West has deepened….Since February 2014, the Kremlin has been de facto operating in a war mode, and…Putin has been acting as a wartime leader.
U.S. rulers are clearly worried. From Philip Breedlove, who retired in May as Commander of the U. S. European Command: “…the United States should… recognize Russia as the enduring global threat it really represents” (Foreign Affairs, July/August). A quick-hitting hybrid invasion of a NATO member, Breedlove warned, would be “brutally expensive and difficult for the United States and its allies to reverse.”
In May, the U.S. installed a missile defense shield in Romania; in a Cold War echo, Russia charged that the move could enable a U.S. “first strike”—a nuclear knockout (Reuters, 5/11). In June, NATO announced plans to deploy four battalions to Poland and the Baltic nations (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) “to deter Russian aggression” (The National Interest, 7/21). The Baltic deployments are especially provocative, since these three states were formerly part of the Soviet Union.
Working People Have No Nation
Just as the imperialist powers are preparing for the next global conflagration, so must the international working class. During World War I, millions of workers died in a fight among capitalist rulers. In Russia, the Bolsheviks turned that imperialist war into a communist revolution for workers’ power, driving out the bosses and establishing a workers’ state. In the wake of World War II, the Chinese communists did the same.
As the next big war approaches, workers throughout the world must take lessons from our history. We have no stake in any capitalist conflicts, no obligation to the parasitic rulers who exploit and use us for cannon fodder. Our objective loyalty is only to the working class, the class that creates everything of value. That’s why PLP says, “Working people have no nations.” With international, multiracial, working-class unity, we can beat the bloodthirsty bosses—by turning the guns around and building a communist revolution. Join us!