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(Arabic) انقر هنا للترجمة العربية
Life, Liberty & Independent Politics in the Time of Covid-19
Russia’s Full-scale Military Invasion & War Against Ukraine
- End Moscow’s war of murder and destruction on Ukraine. Moscow military out of Ukraine. Russian troops out of Crimea and Donbas.
- Washington military out of Eastern Europe and Western Europe.
- End US sanctions on Russia. End US sanctions on Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Venezuela.
- For a Europe free from nuclear armament. For a world free from nuclear armament. Remove the threat of annihilation of human race by imperialist and capitalist nuclear war.
The February 24, 2022 military invasion of Ukraine by Moscow, beginning of a full-scale assault from ground, air and sea, comes at the tail end of social crisis of capitalism during the 2-plus years of Covid-19 pandemic since 2020.
During which, across world capitalism mostly the urban and rural popular classes (URPC) receive the blows of capitalism. Except for Cuba where nobody is left alone to face the pandemic, and people are fully supported to fight the pandemic with advanced care. Where working people, holding state power, is the express portrayal of a society having stepped into post-capitalism history. In doing so a country’s history that provide the rare occasion of leading action, continuous through successive decades, that is seemingly conscious, dialectical, and pragmatic. In contrast to panorama-capitalism, the rule of political jungle, when the pandemic is another occasion for capitalism to serve hardship, hunger, unemployment, rising prices, isolation, and depression.
Covid-19 pandemic, the harrowing experience of nearly 6 million perishing, and the shudder the ruling capitalism introduced by its dismal response, shutdowns, forced mandates, hunger, unemployment, rising prices and the deterioration of life conditions has further created a strong psyche of no appetite for imperial wars across the world. The jolt of URPC into national politics—indicated since 2016 election of Donald Trump to President to be worldwide—fed-up with the ruling establishment politics empty promises, the aspirations for well-being and peace get reinforcement through the tough experience of going through Covid-19. No worse time to launch a war of aggression after worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. Moscow’s invasion runs into the heroic resistance of Ukraine defending its sovereignty. The more it applies war, death and destruction now in its third week, the more it faces opposition, worldwide.
Worldwide there is an outcry against Moscow’s brutal military aggression with its mounting death and destruction, demanding end to aggression and occupation. Over 2000 Ukrainians, among them children, have been killed for no reason but living in their home and country facing brute military aggression. Nearly three million, mostly women and children, are now the Ukrainian refugees in Eastern European countries facing uncertainty. Over 6 million are now displaced inside Ukraine. Tens of thousands are seeking shelter from bombs and missile in subway undergrounds, hundreds of thousands stranded in cities under bombardment bearing the brunt of death and destruction, misery brought upon by Moscow invasion. Many Russian soldiers also have been killed. Bands of Russian soldiers have given up the fight and surrendered. The right of Ukraine to self-determination cannot be quashed by Moscow military invasion, destruction and seizing of cities as the heroic resistance of working people in Ukraine indicates.
Russian public is growingly in sympathy with their brethren in Ukraine. Russian soldiers will increasingly come to sympathy and solidarity with the right of Ukraine to self-determination. Opposition to Putin war is already the biggest anti-war movement of Russia since the times of Tsarist imperialism.
Moscow is seeking the help of Syria’s war mercenaries, a country that experienced the use of chemical weapons by Assad dictatorship against its own people, to join its reactionary war on its side.
In Eastern Europe, now feeling the heat of Moscow invasion, the weight of mostly urban URPCs will grow evermore to the detriment of capitalist governments generally enmeshed in gross corruption without offering the independent solutions to industry, agriculture, economic growth and political liberties as sought by URPC. These fundamental economic and social problems have not altered by investment in IT services in these countries. Imperial plan for these countries for three decades, since the implosion of Eastern Europe, has proved to be mainly a source of cheap labor, immigrant workers, agricultural products and natural resources.
Worldwide, including US, the majority public who is against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is also opposed to Washington’s military presence in East Europe and oppose sanctions against Russia for it harms the livelihood of working people. Sanctions imposed on Russia has nothing to do with expanding the rights of Ukraine and only create hardships for the URPC in Russia and the world. The same as the historic sanctions imposed on North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Venezuela which must all be rescinded as these sanctions aim to make the populations of these countries suffer. Like Covid-19, Russia’s war against Ukraine is another occasion to try to harm the URPC through imposition of sanctions. To make the life of working people more difficult is the main goal of Washington policy of sanctions as it helps the imperial system to push back their own working class and indigenous populations at the same time.
The current US administration arrives at imposing sanctions against Russia both from its fixed imperial perspective as well as the numerous hoax Russia investigations it conducts against former President Trump during and after his term in office. At the same time, US sanctions is an additional leverage against junior competitors like Germany, who rely on Russia energy resources and have major interest and investment in China. With China’s military plans against Taiwan, a forced non-voluntary union that is in contradictions to principles of right of nations to self-determination and voluntary union, Washington looks for extension of sanctions against it.
Increased military spending is demanded by Washington from industrialized Europe, as in Germany, serves to place it in a military position against the working class more than any outside hypothetical invader. No European country is as strong as German economy to attack it militarily from inside or outside Euro union. The best Washington is hoping for is to tuck-in Britain, France and Germany under its direction, like it did during recovery of Europe form the ravages of WWII after Washington had conquered Europe, to currently stand up as one before the tumultuous impact of war launched by Putin. Unlike the resurrection of capitalist Europe after the Second World War under the U.S. auspices, the crucial political glue available back then no longer exists: No mass Communist Parties of Italy and France, and no Moscow under Stalinism, and no major Social Democracy parties, to politically cement European capitalism like it did in post-war Europe after 1945. European capitalism, squeezed between US and China, can only rely on decaying capitalist parties to safeguard itself against the working class at a time when the URPCs are pulsing against Moscow invasion of Ukraine and for improvement of living standards and liberty.
With shocking brutality, yet the war of Moscow on Ukraine is an engagement that is limited by the nature of the undertaker, a newcomer capitalist side agency, during the weakening position of Washington and world imperial order. Russia with an outsized military, bequeathed and expanded from its Stalinist history has an economy smaller than Italy, about the size of Texas. Its greatest achievement during the last 3-plus decades is to suck up the country’s resources, to take away from the indigenous populations and to put it in the production of an array of billionaires who try to establish rank among the traditional western bourgeoisie. This capitalist development is negative as it rains war on Syrian people, along with major help from Iran, against the national sovereignty and liberty in the Middle East.
Putin’s invasion can create lots of horror, death and destruction, havoc and hardship for URPC as already demonstrated in Ukraine, and result in deterioration of life in Russia and many other countries in the world. But will be unable to change the international relations with the United States as the head of world capitalism. What it can change, has already changed, is to the detriment of status of Russia as a key player of international ruling politics per definition of post WWII order; an outcome that also weakens Washington and the world order under its command as US policy is to help Russia not to lose the war in Ukraine.
Can Russia once again, like the first quarter of 20th century with its revolutions of 1905, February and October of 1917, be the trailblazer of social transformation for the benefit of humanity and development of culture? Absent the successful independent action of Russia’s URPC, against the military invasion undertaken by Moscow, action by the only social force that can reinvigorate social, economic, political and cultural life by its independent power, the trajectory of capitalism in Russia is up for further sharp decay and imposition of hardship on its population.
In Europe and the United States, working people feel the need for URPC components to organize independently for peace and demand withdrawal of Russian military as well as US troops from both East and West Europe, and an end to sanctions imposed on Russia and other countries by Washington.
WAR DURING POST-USSR PERIOD PRIOR TO INVASION OF UKRAINE. Post-USSR period since 1991 is a time of rising China. When Washington facing dwindling rates of profitmaking after 1971 economic crisis in the United States must look for alternative resources after its defeat in Vietnam (1975) that are presented by opening to China. To seek further integration of semi-colonial countries with the imperial system under its reign thereby further coalescing the opposites into one another and compounding the existing contradictions of imperial order during the last quarter of the 20th century. These changes bring about the sea change of rising national development.
The background to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is wars in the Middle East region. Once upon a time, during most of 20th century, the centerstage of world petroleum production and super exploitation of its inhabitants by capitalism/imperialism that starts decades earlier in the oil rich Iran and extends to oil rich Saudi Arabia and others after WWII. A region no longer a centerstage to anything but accentuating national oppression, wars and destruction since the last decade of 20th century with oil production glory days of oil rentier states behind. Similarly, Russia, during post-USSR, is no longer beholden, as it was during Cold War, when it was needed by Washington for it to serve as leverage, more so, a partner to US for advancing its supremacy over world capitalism per definitions of its post-WW II order. Likewise, today, when Iran under Islamic Republic (the creation of which is Iranian capitalism being safeguarded and led by Britain, US, France in 1979) is needed by Washington to pose as the arch belligerent party of the Middle East to advance the built-in anti-Semitism of its international capitalist system against Israel. There is no more Nasserism of Egypt and Baathism of Iraq-Syria to play that role a task mostly left for Iran to play. Currently, it is only in Iran and among its proxies that all the cry of capitalist forces in imperial centers, posing as “progressives”, to divest or boycott Israel turns into a shout by Tehran rulers: annihilate Israel.
In this period developing capitalism of semi-colonial countries try to achieve what joint China US achieved in terms of economic development, not by the power of industrial production and exports but by brute military force, by taking over a country next door. Like by Iraq (1981-1990) and Iran (2011-2022) respectively establishing domination over neighbors in Kuwait and Iraq Syria-Lebanon or Saudi Arabia (2015-2022) over Yemen. Even smaller entities like the leadership in Palestinian enclave’s are pressed to launch petty wars against Israel (the last of which so far is during incoming of Biden Administration), or attack/kill Jews as they are paid to do so by various Middle East powers, from Egypt’s Nasser, to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to Khomeini and to Khamenei in present Iran.
Given the successive engagements of US military since the collapse of USSR not even China-US relations are immune to war between them. Ultimately, if history is left to persistence of capitalist exploitation and absence of independent actions of URPC, US-China being joined at the hip will face more and more deepening competition to the point of military opposition, that requires separating the joined hips. Putin’s war is already introducing the threat of elements of US sanctions against China.
During post-USSR period, wars in the Middle East region have the aggrandized semi-colonial actor of Iraq and Iran. The aggrandized actor is an aspiring imperialism of capitalism of a semi colonial country, as if reliving the 19th century wars of dictators on the continent of Europe, across the present-day Middle East. It is only a matter of time for the wars conducted by the imperial semi-colonial capitalism to bring about the opposition of the indigenous populations suffering under their invading military/security, as in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon et al demanding the withdrawal of both US and Iran forces, for their war plans to ultimately end in disaster. As these wars have no progressive content and mimic the wars of imperial masters of capitalism. War launched by a semi-colonial entity is on a fast-track to disaster because the preparator country in question do not have the resources of an advanced industrialized country like the United States, the leader of world capitalism for its endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and expenditure of trillions of dollar. A semi-colonial country must resort to military style repression of the protesters time after time to keep their wars going and silence the people who protest their resources needed at home being wasted by the adventurous bourgeoisie for regional reactionary power.
The capitalist pursuit in wars by semi-colonial powers size into sub-chapters of imperial war history and are eclipsed by it. As evidenced by the crowing wars of this period conducted by Washington’s mighty military led by the United States’ establishment politics, Democratic and Republican leadership, since 1991. Ever since the United States receives the shock of the collapse of USSR and falsely wakes up to expect reaping political fortitude and fortunes across the world from the demise of Stalinist rule in Eastern Europe and Russia.
In the period since 1991, the sequence of wars resulting from capitalist/imperial mindset upon the demise of USSR, also include the Washington war in the former Yugoslavia after the collapse of its bureaucratic leadership into warring parties during the post-Tito in 1990s that results in the breakup of the said country as well as the more limited wars of Tel Aviv utilizing the political freeze of the ruling Palestinian and Arab politics in anti-Semitism to hold back the right of Palestinians to their own simultaneous state side by side with Israel.
Wars in the Middle East that take place in this period have the following chronicle:
- Occupation of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s military in 1990, after its stalemate in the 8-year US-backed war against Iran resulting in over a million death and Iraq's use of chemical weapons (1981-89), to establish its own ill-fated mini-imperialism. Baathist dictatorship’s occupation of Kuwait, relying on its armament by the United States and Western Europe obtained against Iran, provided the opportunity for the ensuing Desert Storm War by the United States to defeat Saddam Hussein and a decade later to obliterate Saddam's rule in Iraq.
- The United States wars of 21st century crown the military adventures of semi-colonial power(s) as indicated by the military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 21st century. Wars that shake these semi-colonial countries to their foundation and—other than providing an unexpected outlet for Kurdish sovereignty in Erbil—generally provide disaster for the people of these countries and the region of west Asia to North Africa. Wars that Washington ultimately finds the necessity to disengage from, as the pullout from Afghanistan after 2 decades indicates. Leaving these countries, yet again, at step zero of the historic unsolved capitalist tasks—the array of rights of women, youth, minority nations and religions, workers and farmers, students, artists and intellectuals, professionals, and small business. Social measures that for a century are blocked by native capitalism and a host of imperialist countries, chiefly Britain, and France, that come to be led by the United States since the end of WWII.
- Wars of occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq by the United States serve to show the crevices and cracks in capitalist rule—openings enough for Tehran to push through its own imperial interests, the petite outlook of the grandstanding Iranian bourgeoisie, utilizing the arc of Shia shibboleth to mobilize Shia militia/mercenary units and engage in military action to safeguard the tottering Assad dictatorship in Syria, and in that process to present itself as the constant and increasing military menace to Israel and the right of Jews to their state as well as URPCs across the region.
- The expenditure of hundreds of billions, for military and otherwise expenses, by the U.S. in its wars of the 21st century opened the possibility for Tehran to achieve its own imperial ends with tens of billions of dollars through the wars of Shia Napoleon i from Iraq to Syria and Lebanon and beyond spewing anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism. All said and done, Tehran is no nearer but farther, by being at the opposite end of the stance for national sovereignty, for independence and freedom—standing against the interest of the right of nations to self-determination throughout the Middle East region. After the rejection of Baathist dictatorship in Syria by the Arab Spring revolution in 2011, Iran wars launched in Syria to consolidate the rule of Assad dictatorship with the help of Moscow; a military exercise against the foundations of democracy and national sovereignty. It’s a victory for unbridled capitalist rule that can only maintain and supplant by further atrocity. As indicated by the military-style suppression of Aban popular mobilizations across Iran (2019) with hundreds of dead.
Iranian capitalism mobilization of Shia mercenaries in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq aims to close further the political space of the working class and establish Tehran bourgeoisie as a constant threat to the right of Jews to their own state in Israel posturing continuously for the annihilation of the Jewish state. The right of Israel to exist is a component part of ending the national oppression of Palestinians to have their right to their own state. No wonder that 6 decades of anti-Semitism and Jew hating from Nasser’s Egypt to Khomeini’s Iran, has not been able to move forward the genuine cause of Palestinian liberation through the united actions of the URPC from within and outside Israel.
RUSSIA & ITS WAR AGAINST UKRAINE. Steps in Putin’s drive to enhance the fortunes of Russian capitalism—chiefly an oil and gas exporter—to achieve national oppression and suppression of Ukraine by its fierce military invasion. A step dictated by the weakness of ruling capitalism all the same that goes back for three decades.
Putin declares Ukraine always belonged to us (to Romanov Dynasty?) in the past. As if Russian history can be clocked back to the times of Tsarism before the revolutions of 1917—the first revolution of that year in February bringing about the downfall of Tsarism and the second in October establishing the power of worker and farmers as government. To clock back to old history is a possibility only if the humanity is politically dead, the URPCs are eliminated from their say in history. No wonder Moscow’s war is coupled with the alarm of nuclear war that can clock back earth to pre-humanity.
Though the world and all of humanity can be obliterated by a nuclear war brought on by imperial war, history cannot go back to the pre-USSR old Russia era, no matter how much Washington and Moscow, each in their own way, try to achieve it based on the collapse of USSR in 1991. The USSR's collapse was a facet of weakening of capitalism worldwide which the US establishment politics mistook for its own strengthening based on fictitious political fortunes and framed it as Washington’s newly earned more unchallengeable worldwide power. The false mindset and expectations of imperialism, led by the ruling establishment politics, is complemented by the petty bourgeois radicals who at the time of collapse of USSR sing the serenade of a new “Marshal Plan” to rebuild capitalism in Eastern Europe and Russia. Meanwhile, a country like India, with more poverty than the entirety of Africa, and Africa a continent in much more dire need than perhaps the rest of the world, is glossed over by the proponents of the new “Marshal Plan” allegedly to keep it away from mayhem. When the central rule and driving dynamics is imperial competition pure and simple. The same political crowd that is currently yearning for the partition of Ukraine as opposed to the latter’s victory. When Washington, shedding crocodile tears for Ukraine sovereignty, holds back conventional arms shipment, like Polish fighter planes, with the excuse that it would conflagrate WWIII.
Putin claims the independent and sovereign Ukraine to be an invention of October Revolution of 1917 led by Lenin. ii Russia, during its imperial history under Tsarism, was “a prison house of nations.” That ended by the October Revolution of 1917 establishing the workers and farmers government. When the principal of right of nations to self-determination was recognized by the early Soviet government and Ukraine and many other republics were established. All oppressed countries, especially in the region of Middle East in the proximity and having suffered from Tsarist oppression found an ally in the newly established government of workers and farmers by the October Revolution in 1917.
A country like Iran who for decades prior to 1917 was suppressed under the Anglo-Russian competition to control its destiny benefited by the right of nations to self-determination heralded by the Russian revolution. Iran found a breathing space by the apology offered by the revolutionary Soviet government in 1920 for its past imperial oppression and misconduct and cancellation of all debt owed by Iran to Tsarist Russia (alas only for Iran to fall under the British concoction of 1st Pahlavi backbreaking autocracy by the joint action of native bourgeoisie and its British imperial guardians).
The right of nations to self-determination, though pushed back and suppressed by Stalin and subsequent Moscow leaderships since 1920s up until the demise of the USSR in 1991, is back to life. This is evidenced by the heroic battle of Ukrainian people for liberty and independence against the merciless Moscow war.
WHAT IRAN MUST DO TO HELP UKRAINE? In 2022 a country like Iran instead of declaring solidarity with Putin’s war on Ukraine, as expressed by Tehran under Raisi, needs to hold mass marches in support of Ukraine, and open its borders to host Ukrainian war refugees. Especially since recently (2019) Iran has on its record the criminal downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane taking off from Tehran's International Airport by a missile strike and killing all on board. Tehran needs to demand Moscow to open air corridors to fly Ukrainian war refugees to Iran.
Iran needs to advance the right of its own nations by establishing and bringing back to life the governments of Arabistan in Khuzestan, Kurds in Mahabad, Turks in Tabriz, Gilak in Gilan, Turkmen in Turkmen Sahra, Baluch in Baluchistan. Let the demand for the withdrawal of Tehran Shia mercenaries from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and beyond ring in the four corners of Iran. Let there be universal demand in Iran for no firing of a single bullet or a missile to neighboring countries of Iran and Israel and not a dollar spent by Tehran to support anti-Semitic political misleaders in Palestine and elsewhere.
Middle East has paid dearly in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon by Tehran misleadership taking aim to suppress the rights of workers and farmers, the independent URPC by advancing anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism. In Iran, or any other place, a single independent workers and farmers organization/union is worth a thousand nuclear centrifuges and missiles produced by the capitalist class against the interests of workers and farmers by wasting national resources in wars of conquest in the Middle East. Khomeini’s capitalist model, social & political suppression which he borrowed from the Shah and hawked under the pretense that it was against America is long dead and rejected by majority of URPC.
Iran has fundamental negative experience in this area with Tehran capitalist government copying from imperial, toying for decades by getting closer to the construction of nuclear weapons under the cover of expanding peaceful nuclear technology while producing missiles and other military warfare equipment threatening URPCs in the entire region. Workers and farmers in Iran can only correct the ravages of capitalist leadership of Islamic Republic by orienting the country to be the basket of food, double digit economic growth, a Mecca of artistic and intellectual freedom for the country, the region and the world.
HOW DID IRAN COME TO OPPOSE URPCs IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND BEYOND? By overthrowing the monarchy in 1979, Iran could have avoided the last 4 decades of misleadership of capitalist class under the direction of its imperial guardians—with one hand establishing and supporting the Islamic Republic, and another imposing sanctions on it to harm the URPC—by committing itself to the rights of workers and farmers, the independent URPC. However, in 1979 it took only the utterance of Islamic Republic by then popular Khomeini, popular for his opposition to the monarchy, for the native capitalists and their entire spectrum of ruling politics to be led, in the order of seniority, experience and leading of Iran politics during the history of reactionary monarchies since the 19th century, by London, Washington, and Paris to hold Khomeini to his utterance and consolidate a capitalist dictatorship. Khomeini was a high cleric, a capitalist politician, who was mainly clueless about the facts and needs of history to commit to the unsolved historic democratic tasks and felt history was up to rediscovery of Islam and required its forceful imposition against the will of the people. Imperial academia led by its media, like the New York Times, rushed to deciphering Islam as if it needed new understanding. Khomeini, while politically a head and shoulder above his entourage of ruling capitalist supporters, surrounded himself with a cast of radical petty bourgeois elements, cleric and non cleric, from the opposition abroad and inside the country, to lead the society; none of whom supported the revolution and overthrow of monarchy. He rewarded scores of such individuals to fully fill up the posts of capitalist government and to lead his new militias. There was no possibility of any fundamental solution coming from any capitalist government, his chosen governments, which he changed all the time as the solution lied among the independent URPC and he blocked freedom, the independent discussion and organization of workers and farmers and the rest of society. Khomeini tried to eliminate all independent politics of workers and farmers, the right of women and youth, nationalities and minority religions, artists and intellectuals under the guise of fighting America. His method was incarceration and suppression; repression and execution; his models in eliminating his opponents was stories from over a thousand year and more in the past that had no bearing or relation to the 20th century. Various bands of Khalghi, populist, political tendencies long before, fully defeated under the shah (1972- 75), who were in league with this or that faction of his appointees and could not propose or act for the good of country as all they were was a defeated residue of the past, he used them as battering ram to consolidate the capitalist rule. Imperialists pushed for terror bombing and assassination by these groups and execution of their supporters by Khomeini. The apparatus of repression that worked for Khomeini, dubbed as Islamic courts and Pasdaran, was deeply connected and led by the capitalist class, Bazar (Moatalefeh and others) and was led by the same host of imperial centers like London, Washington, and Paris who have led Iran’s capitalism for over a century. Once he saw his goals in war with Iraq did not materialize (summer of 1989) as he had led himself to believe and a very long list of name-seekers surrounding him tried to make him believe, when all proved false, he died in chagrin with deepest sorrow for his misleadership.
Ukraine battle for sovereignty provides opportunity for Iran to revisit its past and replant the seeds of national liberation. The revolution of 1979 allowed for a new way of life, double digit growth, education, healthcare, jobs, freedom and providing honorable life for members of society deep among the URPC who had long suffered under the regimes of repression and torture of the shahs. Khomeini threw it all away for the make belief rhetoric that the time had come to enforce stricture and scripture from the times of Asiatic-feudal past for the benefit of capitalists at home and abroad.
FOR A EUROPE FREE FROM NUCLEAR ARMS; A WORLD FREE FROM NUCLEAR ARMS. Along the sympathy and solidarity of the world with Ukraine each country is faced with the task of eliminating its own nuclear weapons. This can only be attained if the governmental power transfers from the rule of capitalists to that of the workers and farmers, the independent URPC.
Let the solidarity with Ukraine's heroic resistance renew the independent organization and action of the URPC worldwide for peace and independent governmental power. Humanity can find joy of liberty in the victory of Ukraine over Moscow.
Babak Zahraie
March 20, 2022
Covid-19 pandemic, the harrowing experience of nearly 6 million perishing, and the shudder the ruling capitalism introduced by its dismal response, shutdowns, forced mandates, hunger, unemployment, rising prices and the deterioration of life conditions has further created a strong psyche of no appetite for imperial wars across the world. The jolt of URPC into national politics—indicated since 2016 election of Donald Trump to President to be worldwide—fed-up with the ruling establishment politics empty promises, the aspirations for well-being and peace get reinforcement through the tough experience of going through Covid-19. No worse time to launch a war of aggression after worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. Moscow’s invasion runs into the heroic resistance of Ukraine defending its sovereignty. The more it applies war, death and destruction now in its third week, the more it faces opposition, worldwide.
Worldwide there is an outcry against Moscow’s brutal military aggression with its mounting death and destruction, demanding end to aggression and occupation. Over 2000 Ukrainians, among them children, have been killed for no reason but living in their home and country facing brute military aggression. Nearly three million, mostly women and children, are now the Ukrainian refugees in Eastern European countries facing uncertainty. Over 6 million are now displaced inside Ukraine. Tens of thousands are seeking shelter from bombs and missile in subway undergrounds, hundreds of thousands stranded in cities under bombardment bearing the brunt of death and destruction, misery brought upon by Moscow invasion. Many Russian soldiers also have been killed. Bands of Russian soldiers have given up the fight and surrendered. The right of Ukraine to self-determination cannot be quashed by Moscow military invasion, destruction and seizing of cities as the heroic resistance of working people in Ukraine indicates.
Russian public is growingly in sympathy with their brethren in Ukraine. Russian soldiers will increasingly come to sympathy and solidarity with the right of Ukraine to self-determination. Opposition to Putin war is already the biggest anti-war movement of Russia since the times of Tsarist imperialism.
Moscow is seeking the help of Syria’s war mercenaries, a country that experienced the use of chemical weapons by Assad dictatorship against its own people, to join its reactionary war on its side.
In Eastern Europe, now feeling the heat of Moscow invasion, the weight of mostly urban URPCs will grow evermore to the detriment of capitalist governments generally enmeshed in gross corruption without offering the independent solutions to industry, agriculture, economic growth and political liberties as sought by URPC. These fundamental economic and social problems have not altered by investment in IT services in these countries. Imperial plan for these countries for three decades, since the implosion of Eastern Europe, has proved to be mainly a source of cheap labor, immigrant workers, agricultural products and natural resources.
Worldwide, including US, the majority public who is against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is also opposed to Washington’s military presence in East Europe and oppose sanctions against Russia for it harms the livelihood of working people. Sanctions imposed on Russia has nothing to do with expanding the rights of Ukraine and only create hardships for the URPC in Russia and the world. The same as the historic sanctions imposed on North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Venezuela which must all be rescinded as these sanctions aim to make the populations of these countries suffer. Like Covid-19, Russia’s war against Ukraine is another occasion to try to harm the URPC through imposition of sanctions. To make the life of working people more difficult is the main goal of Washington policy of sanctions as it helps the imperial system to push back their own working class and indigenous populations at the same time.
The current US administration arrives at imposing sanctions against Russia both from its fixed imperial perspective as well as the numerous hoax Russia investigations it conducts against former President Trump during and after his term in office. At the same time, US sanctions is an additional leverage against junior competitors like Germany, who rely on Russia energy resources and have major interest and investment in China. With China’s military plans against Taiwan, a forced non-voluntary union that is in contradictions to principles of right of nations to self-determination and voluntary union, Washington looks for extension of sanctions against it.
Increased military spending is demanded by Washington from industrialized Europe, as in Germany, serves to place it in a military position against the working class more than any outside hypothetical invader. No European country is as strong as German economy to attack it militarily from inside or outside Euro union. The best Washington is hoping for is to tuck-in Britain, France and Germany under its direction, like it did during recovery of Europe form the ravages of WWII after Washington had conquered Europe, to currently stand up as one before the tumultuous impact of war launched by Putin. Unlike the resurrection of capitalist Europe after the Second World War under the U.S. auspices, the crucial political glue available back then no longer exists: No mass Communist Parties of Italy and France, and no Moscow under Stalinism, and no major Social Democracy parties, to politically cement European capitalism like it did in post-war Europe after 1945. European capitalism, squeezed between US and China, can only rely on decaying capitalist parties to safeguard itself against the working class at a time when the URPCs are pulsing against Moscow invasion of Ukraine and for improvement of living standards and liberty.
With shocking brutality, yet the war of Moscow on Ukraine is an engagement that is limited by the nature of the undertaker, a newcomer capitalist side agency, during the weakening position of Washington and world imperial order. Russia with an outsized military, bequeathed and expanded from its Stalinist history has an economy smaller than Italy, about the size of Texas. Its greatest achievement during the last 3-plus decades is to suck up the country’s resources, to take away from the indigenous populations and to put it in the production of an array of billionaires who try to establish rank among the traditional western bourgeoisie. This capitalist development is negative as it rains war on Syrian people, along with major help from Iran, against the national sovereignty and liberty in the Middle East.
Putin’s invasion can create lots of horror, death and destruction, havoc and hardship for URPC as already demonstrated in Ukraine, and result in deterioration of life in Russia and many other countries in the world. But will be unable to change the international relations with the United States as the head of world capitalism. What it can change, has already changed, is to the detriment of status of Russia as a key player of international ruling politics per definition of post WWII order; an outcome that also weakens Washington and the world order under its command as US policy is to help Russia not to lose the war in Ukraine.
Can Russia once again, like the first quarter of 20th century with its revolutions of 1905, February and October of 1917, be the trailblazer of social transformation for the benefit of humanity and development of culture? Absent the successful independent action of Russia’s URPC, against the military invasion undertaken by Moscow, action by the only social force that can reinvigorate social, economic, political and cultural life by its independent power, the trajectory of capitalism in Russia is up for further sharp decay and imposition of hardship on its population.
In Europe and the United States, working people feel the need for URPC components to organize independently for peace and demand withdrawal of Russian military as well as US troops from both East and West Europe, and an end to sanctions imposed on Russia and other countries by Washington.
WAR DURING POST-USSR PERIOD PRIOR TO INVASION OF UKRAINE. Post-USSR period since 1991 is a time of rising China. When Washington facing dwindling rates of profitmaking after 1971 economic crisis in the United States must look for alternative resources after its defeat in Vietnam (1975) that are presented by opening to China. To seek further integration of semi-colonial countries with the imperial system under its reign thereby further coalescing the opposites into one another and compounding the existing contradictions of imperial order during the last quarter of the 20th century. These changes bring about the sea change of rising national development.
The background to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is wars in the Middle East region. Once upon a time, during most of 20th century, the centerstage of world petroleum production and super exploitation of its inhabitants by capitalism/imperialism that starts decades earlier in the oil rich Iran and extends to oil rich Saudi Arabia and others after WWII. A region no longer a centerstage to anything but accentuating national oppression, wars and destruction since the last decade of 20th century with oil production glory days of oil rentier states behind. Similarly, Russia, during post-USSR, is no longer beholden, as it was during Cold War, when it was needed by Washington for it to serve as leverage, more so, a partner to US for advancing its supremacy over world capitalism per definitions of its post-WW II order. Likewise, today, when Iran under Islamic Republic (the creation of which is Iranian capitalism being safeguarded and led by Britain, US, France in 1979) is needed by Washington to pose as the arch belligerent party of the Middle East to advance the built-in anti-Semitism of its international capitalist system against Israel. There is no more Nasserism of Egypt and Baathism of Iraq-Syria to play that role a task mostly left for Iran to play. Currently, it is only in Iran and among its proxies that all the cry of capitalist forces in imperial centers, posing as “progressives”, to divest or boycott Israel turns into a shout by Tehran rulers: annihilate Israel.
In this period developing capitalism of semi-colonial countries try to achieve what joint China US achieved in terms of economic development, not by the power of industrial production and exports but by brute military force, by taking over a country next door. Like by Iraq (1981-1990) and Iran (2011-2022) respectively establishing domination over neighbors in Kuwait and Iraq Syria-Lebanon or Saudi Arabia (2015-2022) over Yemen. Even smaller entities like the leadership in Palestinian enclave’s are pressed to launch petty wars against Israel (the last of which so far is during incoming of Biden Administration), or attack/kill Jews as they are paid to do so by various Middle East powers, from Egypt’s Nasser, to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to Khomeini and to Khamenei in present Iran.
Given the successive engagements of US military since the collapse of USSR not even China-US relations are immune to war between them. Ultimately, if history is left to persistence of capitalist exploitation and absence of independent actions of URPC, US-China being joined at the hip will face more and more deepening competition to the point of military opposition, that requires separating the joined hips. Putin’s war is already introducing the threat of elements of US sanctions against China.
During post-USSR period, wars in the Middle East region have the aggrandized semi-colonial actor of Iraq and Iran. The aggrandized actor is an aspiring imperialism of capitalism of a semi colonial country, as if reliving the 19th century wars of dictators on the continent of Europe, across the present-day Middle East. It is only a matter of time for the wars conducted by the imperial semi-colonial capitalism to bring about the opposition of the indigenous populations suffering under their invading military/security, as in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon et al demanding the withdrawal of both US and Iran forces, for their war plans to ultimately end in disaster. As these wars have no progressive content and mimic the wars of imperial masters of capitalism. War launched by a semi-colonial entity is on a fast-track to disaster because the preparator country in question do not have the resources of an advanced industrialized country like the United States, the leader of world capitalism for its endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and expenditure of trillions of dollar. A semi-colonial country must resort to military style repression of the protesters time after time to keep their wars going and silence the people who protest their resources needed at home being wasted by the adventurous bourgeoisie for regional reactionary power.
The capitalist pursuit in wars by semi-colonial powers size into sub-chapters of imperial war history and are eclipsed by it. As evidenced by the crowing wars of this period conducted by Washington’s mighty military led by the United States’ establishment politics, Democratic and Republican leadership, since 1991. Ever since the United States receives the shock of the collapse of USSR and falsely wakes up to expect reaping political fortitude and fortunes across the world from the demise of Stalinist rule in Eastern Europe and Russia.
In the period since 1991, the sequence of wars resulting from capitalist/imperial mindset upon the demise of USSR, also include the Washington war in the former Yugoslavia after the collapse of its bureaucratic leadership into warring parties during the post-Tito in 1990s that results in the breakup of the said country as well as the more limited wars of Tel Aviv utilizing the political freeze of the ruling Palestinian and Arab politics in anti-Semitism to hold back the right of Palestinians to their own simultaneous state side by side with Israel.
Wars in the Middle East that take place in this period have the following chronicle:
- Occupation of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s military in 1990, after its stalemate in the 8-year US-backed war against Iran resulting in over a million death and Iraq's use of chemical weapons (1981-89), to establish its own ill-fated mini-imperialism. Baathist dictatorship’s occupation of Kuwait, relying on its armament by the United States and Western Europe obtained against Iran, provided the opportunity for the ensuing Desert Storm War by the United States to defeat Saddam Hussein and a decade later to obliterate Saddam's rule in Iraq.
- The United States wars of 21st century crown the military adventures of semi-colonial power(s) as indicated by the military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 21st century. Wars that shake these semi-colonial countries to their foundation and—other than providing an unexpected outlet for Kurdish sovereignty in Erbil—generally provide disaster for the people of these countries and the region of west Asia to North Africa. Wars that Washington ultimately finds the necessity to disengage from, as the pullout from Afghanistan after 2 decades indicates. Leaving these countries, yet again, at step zero of the historic unsolved capitalist tasks—the array of rights of women, youth, minority nations and religions, workers and farmers, students, artists and intellectuals, professionals, and small business. Social measures that for a century are blocked by native capitalism and a host of imperialist countries, chiefly Britain, and France, that come to be led by the United States since the end of WWII.
- Wars of occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq by the United States serve to show the crevices and cracks in capitalist rule—openings enough for Tehran to push through its own imperial interests, the petite outlook of the grandstanding Iranian bourgeoisie, utilizing the arc of Shia shibboleth to mobilize Shia militia/mercenary units and engage in military action to safeguard the tottering Assad dictatorship in Syria, and in that process to present itself as the constant and increasing military menace to Israel and the right of Jews to their state as well as URPCs across the region.
- The expenditure of hundreds of billions, for military and otherwise expenses, by the U.S. in its wars of the 21st century opened the possibility for Tehran to achieve its own imperial ends with tens of billions of dollars through the wars of Shia Napoleon i from Iraq to Syria and Lebanon and beyond spewing anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism. All said and done, Tehran is no nearer but farther, by being at the opposite end of the stance for national sovereignty, for independence and freedom—standing against the interest of the right of nations to self-determination throughout the Middle East region. After the rejection of Baathist dictatorship in Syria by the Arab Spring revolution in 2011, Iran wars launched in Syria to consolidate the rule of Assad dictatorship with the help of Moscow; a military exercise against the foundations of democracy and national sovereignty. It’s a victory for unbridled capitalist rule that can only maintain and supplant by further atrocity. As indicated by the military-style suppression of Aban popular mobilizations across Iran (2019) with hundreds of dead.
Iranian capitalism mobilization of Shia mercenaries in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq aims to close further the political space of the working class and establish Tehran bourgeoisie as a constant threat to the right of Jews to their own state in Israel posturing continuously for the annihilation of the Jewish state. The right of Israel to exist is a component part of ending the national oppression of Palestinians to have their right to their own state. No wonder that 6 decades of anti-Semitism and Jew hating from Nasser’s Egypt to Khomeini’s Iran, has not been able to move forward the genuine cause of Palestinian liberation through the united actions of the URPC from within and outside Israel.
RUSSIA & ITS WAR AGAINST UKRAINE. Steps in Putin’s drive to enhance the fortunes of Russian capitalism—chiefly an oil and gas exporter—to achieve national oppression and suppression of Ukraine by its fierce military invasion. A step dictated by the weakness of ruling capitalism all the same that goes back for three decades.
Putin declares Ukraine always belonged to us (to Romanov Dynasty?) in the past. As if Russian history can be clocked back to the times of Tsarism before the revolutions of 1917—the first revolution of that year in February bringing about the downfall of Tsarism and the second in October establishing the power of worker and farmers as government. To clock back to old history is a possibility only if the humanity is politically dead, the URPCs are eliminated from their say in history. No wonder Moscow’s war is coupled with the alarm of nuclear war that can clock back earth to pre-humanity.
Though the world and all of humanity can be obliterated by a nuclear war brought on by imperial war, history cannot go back to the pre-USSR old Russia era, no matter how much Washington and Moscow, each in their own way, try to achieve it based on the collapse of USSR in 1991. The USSR's collapse was a facet of weakening of capitalism worldwide which the US establishment politics mistook for its own strengthening based on fictitious political fortunes and framed it as Washington’s newly earned more unchallengeable worldwide power. The false mindset and expectations of imperialism, led by the ruling establishment politics, is complemented by the petty bourgeois radicals who at the time of collapse of USSR sing the serenade of a new “Marshal Plan” to rebuild capitalism in Eastern Europe and Russia. Meanwhile, a country like India, with more poverty than the entirety of Africa, and Africa a continent in much more dire need than perhaps the rest of the world, is glossed over by the proponents of the new “Marshal Plan” allegedly to keep it away from mayhem. When the central rule and driving dynamics is imperial competition pure and simple. The same political crowd that is currently yearning for the partition of Ukraine as opposed to the latter’s victory. When Washington, shedding crocodile tears for Ukraine sovereignty, holds back conventional arms shipment, like Polish fighter planes, with the excuse that it would conflagrate WWIII.
Putin claims the independent and sovereign Ukraine to be an invention of October Revolution of 1917 led by Lenin. ii Russia, during its imperial history under Tsarism, was “a prison house of nations.” That ended by the October Revolution of 1917 establishing the workers and farmers government. When the principal of right of nations to self-determination was recognized by the early Soviet government and Ukraine and many other republics were established. All oppressed countries, especially in the region of Middle East in the proximity and having suffered from Tsarist oppression found an ally in the newly established government of workers and farmers by the October Revolution in 1917.
A country like Iran who for decades prior to 1917 was suppressed under the Anglo-Russian competition to control its destiny benefited by the right of nations to self-determination heralded by the Russian revolution. Iran found a breathing space by the apology offered by the revolutionary Soviet government in 1920 for its past imperial oppression and misconduct and cancellation of all debt owed by Iran to Tsarist Russia (alas only for Iran to fall under the British concoction of 1st Pahlavi backbreaking autocracy by the joint action of native bourgeoisie and its British imperial guardians).
The right of nations to self-determination, though pushed back and suppressed by Stalin and subsequent Moscow leaderships since 1920s up until the demise of the USSR in 1991, is back to life. This is evidenced by the heroic battle of Ukrainian people for liberty and independence against the merciless Moscow war.
WHAT IRAN MUST DO TO HELP UKRAINE? In 2022 a country like Iran instead of declaring solidarity with Putin’s war on Ukraine, as expressed by Tehran under Raisi, needs to hold mass marches in support of Ukraine, and open its borders to host Ukrainian war refugees. Especially since recently (2019) Iran has on its record the criminal downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane taking off from Tehran's International Airport by a missile strike and killing all on board. Tehran needs to demand Moscow to open air corridors to fly Ukrainian war refugees to Iran.
Iran needs to advance the right of its own nations by establishing and bringing back to life the governments of Arabistan in Khuzestan, Kurds in Mahabad, Turks in Tabriz, Gilak in Gilan, Turkmen in Turkmen Sahra, Baluch in Baluchistan. Let the demand for the withdrawal of Tehran Shia mercenaries from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and beyond ring in the four corners of Iran. Let there be universal demand in Iran for no firing of a single bullet or a missile to neighboring countries of Iran and Israel and not a dollar spent by Tehran to support anti-Semitic political misleaders in Palestine and elsewhere.
Middle East has paid dearly in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon by Tehran misleadership taking aim to suppress the rights of workers and farmers, the independent URPC by advancing anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism. In Iran, or any other place, a single independent workers and farmers organization/union is worth a thousand nuclear centrifuges and missiles produced by the capitalist class against the interests of workers and farmers by wasting national resources in wars of conquest in the Middle East. Khomeini’s capitalist model, social & political suppression which he borrowed from the Shah and hawked under the pretense that it was against America is long dead and rejected by majority of URPC.
Iran has fundamental negative experience in this area with Tehran capitalist government copying from imperial, toying for decades by getting closer to the construction of nuclear weapons under the cover of expanding peaceful nuclear technology while producing missiles and other military warfare equipment threatening URPCs in the entire region. Workers and farmers in Iran can only correct the ravages of capitalist leadership of Islamic Republic by orienting the country to be the basket of food, double digit economic growth, a Mecca of artistic and intellectual freedom for the country, the region and the world.
HOW DID IRAN COME TO OPPOSE URPCs IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND BEYOND? By overthrowing the monarchy in 1979, Iran could have avoided the last 4 decades of misleadership of capitalist class under the direction of its imperial guardians—with one hand establishing and supporting the Islamic Republic, and another imposing sanctions on it to harm the URPC—by committing itself to the rights of workers and farmers, the independent URPC. However, in 1979 it took only the utterance of Islamic Republic by then popular Khomeini, popular for his opposition to the monarchy, for the native capitalists and their entire spectrum of ruling politics to be led, in the order of seniority, experience and leading of Iran politics during the history of reactionary monarchies since the 19th century, by London, Washington, and Paris to hold Khomeini to his utterance and consolidate a capitalist dictatorship. Khomeini was a high cleric, a capitalist politician, who was mainly clueless about the facts and needs of history to commit to the unsolved historic democratic tasks and felt history was up to rediscovery of Islam and required its forceful imposition against the will of the people. Imperial academia led by its media, like the New York Times, rushed to deciphering Islam as if it needed new understanding. Khomeini, while politically a head and shoulder above his entourage of ruling capitalist supporters, surrounded himself with a cast of radical petty bourgeois elements, cleric and non cleric, from the opposition abroad and inside the country, to lead the society; none of whom supported the revolution and overthrow of monarchy. He rewarded scores of such individuals to fully fill up the posts of capitalist government and to lead his new militias. There was no possibility of any fundamental solution coming from any capitalist government, his chosen governments, which he changed all the time as the solution lied among the independent URPC and he blocked freedom, the independent discussion and organization of workers and farmers and the rest of society. Khomeini tried to eliminate all independent politics of workers and farmers, the right of women and youth, nationalities and minority religions, artists and intellectuals under the guise of fighting America. His method was incarceration and suppression; repression and execution; his models in eliminating his opponents was stories from over a thousand year and more in the past that had no bearing or relation to the 20th century. Various bands of Khalghi, populist, political tendencies long before, fully defeated under the shah (1972- 75), who were in league with this or that faction of his appointees and could not propose or act for the good of country as all they were was a defeated residue of the past, he used them as battering ram to consolidate the capitalist rule. Imperialists pushed for terror bombing and assassination by these groups and execution of their supporters by Khomeini. The apparatus of repression that worked for Khomeini, dubbed as Islamic courts and Pasdaran, was deeply connected and led by the capitalist class, Bazar (Moatalefeh and others) and was led by the same host of imperial centers like London, Washington, and Paris who have led Iran’s capitalism for over a century. Once he saw his goals in war with Iraq did not materialize (summer of 1989) as he had led himself to believe and a very long list of name-seekers surrounding him tried to make him believe, when all proved false, he died in chagrin with deepest sorrow for his misleadership.
Ukraine battle for sovereignty provides opportunity for Iran to revisit its past and replant the seeds of national liberation. The revolution of 1979 allowed for a new way of life, double digit growth, education, healthcare, jobs, freedom and providing honorable life for members of society deep among the URPC who had long suffered under the regimes of repression and torture of the shahs. Khomeini threw it all away for the make belief rhetoric that the time had come to enforce stricture and scripture from the times of Asiatic-feudal past for the benefit of capitalists at home and abroad.
FOR A EUROPE FREE FROM NUCLEAR ARMS; A WORLD FREE FROM NUCLEAR ARMS. Along the sympathy and solidarity of the world with Ukraine each country is faced with the task of eliminating its own nuclear weapons. This can only be attained if the governmental power transfers from the rule of capitalists to that of the workers and farmers, the independent URPC.
Let the solidarity with Ukraine's heroic resistance renew the independent organization and action of the URPC worldwide for peace and independent governmental power. Humanity can find joy of liberty in the victory of Ukraine over Moscow.
Babak Zahraie
March 20, 2022
i When semi-colonial Napoleon takes its own defunct setup and imposes it on likewise economic and social setup to demonstrate double retrogression. State and revolution, Shia Napoleon, 2018, babakzahraie.blogpost.com (http://babakzahraie.blogspot.com/2018/05/3.html?m=1)
ii The elimination of national oppression, if at all achievable in capitalist society, is possible only under a consistently democratic republican system and state administration that guarantee complete equality for all nations and languages. The right of all the nations forming part of Russia freely to secede and form independent states must be recognised. To deny them this right, or to fail to take measures guaranteeing its practical realisation, is equivalent to supporting a policy of seizure or annexation. Only the recognition by the proletariat of the right of nations to secede can ensure complete solidarity among the workers of the various nations and help to bring the nations closer together on truly democratic lines. V.I. Lenin. Resolution on the National Question; April 1917.
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