Denis Etlers brilliant class analysis of Putins and Moscows policy on Ukraine. It is an analysis that goes further than the crisis in Ukraine and explains (to me, at least) much more: Putin lacks any ideological grounding other than Russian nationalism. He represents a faction of the Russian national bourgeoisie that wants to maintain its independence from Western capital and be treated as an equal to their Western counterparts. Hence he and his colleagues are constantly seeking approval for their actions, to demonstrate that they are team players. Even if they are on an opposing team they will play by the rules of the game. Their Western counterparts just see Putin and his class as interlopers who must be squeezed dry and can then be discarded. The neo-liberal wing of the Russian national bourgeoisie are simply Compradors who serve the interests of Western capital and act as a fifth column for the US. Putins branch of the national bourgeoisie wants to accommodate to the wishes of the EU and be kept in their good graces, whereas the neo-liberal wing of the Russian national bourgeoisie is in the US hip pocket. Putin in order to maintain his popular mandate to rule has to voice support for ethnic Russians in Ukraine but is loathe to offend his EU sponsors, and as a result he gets little respect in return. That is why I say he is like a Junker to the European economic and political royalty seeking their approval but generally getting the back of their hand. So it is unrealistic to expect Putin or his class allies to intervene in Ukraine no matter what occurs. Another factor is that the Russian power elite understands the need to utilize draconian measures to ensure the territorial integrity of the state that they dominate as they demonstrated in Chechnya. The leveling of Grozny and other Chechen towns and villages was analogous to what is happening In Donboss but on a far grander scale, due to the lack of training and experience of Russian forces, they attacked random positions, turning into carpet bombing and indiscriminate barrages of rocket artillery, and causing enormous casualties among the Chechen and Russian civilian population. Other analogies can also be made. The point being that Putin and his oligarchic supporters can identify with the class interests of their Ukrainian counterparts more than they can with the working class partisans fighting for bread and roses. The only way for the partisans to withstand the Kievan assault is to rally their own forces for a protracted war of national liberation, enlist the Russian people to force Putin and his vacillating class collaborators to do the right thing, and get the European masses to demand an end to fascism not only in Ukraine but throughout the EU. Im not knowledgeable about the political landscape in Russia but as far as I can tell the CPRF has the proper line on the struggle in Ukraine. Perhaps they can rally the Russian people to fight fascism. Putin left to his own devises will not. His class interests will however lead him to unite with other anti-imperialist forces within the BRICS alliance and elsewhere to forge a multipolar world in which the US dollar is no longer paramount. The strategic alliance of Russia and China that has resulted from the Ukraine crisis is unfortunately more decisive than the fate of the Donbass people. It is a sad commentary on the state of the world that the people in Donbass, Syria and so many other areas of the world are the ones that suffer as the geopolitical fault lines slip and slide around them.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 03:38:35 +0000
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