robbo203
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“Soldiers are killed in wars. It’s the risk one takes for signing up for such work. Though the deaths are tragic for the families involved its hardly “catastrophic” for Russia as was the suggestion made by the original poster.”
————————What an admission that the capitalist nation-state couldn’t care a stuff about the lives of ordinary workers who it treats as mere cannon fodder! That’s a good enough reason for workers not to care a stuff about the cause of nationalism and the spurious reasons it gives for encouraging workers to put their lives at risk for the sake of odious capitalist warlords like Putin or Zelensky
“Are you making the same mistake as the EU’s Usula Von Der Leyden conflating casualty figures with deaths”
_____________________Not saying I agree with the figures Alan but this is what the Independent newspaper reported
“Nearly 200,000 Russian troops have been killed in Ukraine, US officials say
Top US official said last month that casualties on both sides were ‘significantly well over 100,000 now’ ”https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-war-russia-death-toll-b2274969.html
“Albeit, an individual author rather than an organisation’s statement, this anarchist anti-war statement makes a number of valid points that many of us can recognise, although the potential actions of the anti-war movement are optimistically inflated.
https://libcom.org/article/british-anarchism-succumbs-war-fever”
_______________________________________________That’s a very good article, Alan. I note also its criticism of the suggestion put forward by PGB here that socialists (or anarchists) should organise to defend themselves independently of the Ukrainian state to militarily resist Russian imperialism. In practice that would not happen. These groups would simply be absorbed into the command structure of the Ukrainian military and end up fighting for the self-same deluded nationalist cause of the latter
We often attack those naive romantic Leftists who want to overthrow the modern capitalist state by violent means as engaging in a suicidal fantasy. It’s the same when confronting an invading army. It’s sheer stupidity to put your life at risk and for no good purpose whatsoever. Better to become a refugee or stay if you must but drop the heroics. Who cares what tacky piece of cloth called a flag you end up living under anyway? Better alive than dead
“Russia has annexed huge swathes of resource rich territory, grown its population and all at the cost of less than 20-30,000 lives. Remind me, what’s this “catastrophic error” of which you speak?”
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TS inadvertently exposes the capitalist motives behind this sordid capitalist war – resource-rich territory indeed! But note the callous capitalist calculus at work here. Russia´s imperialist annexation has come “at the cost of less than 20-30,000 lives”. It’s like 20-30,000 lives don’t really matter, they are expendable from the standpoint of those who hope to benefit from this annexation.
Incidentally, where does he get this figure of 20-30,000 lives lost (I presume he is referring to “Russian” lives). Russian official propaganda? The latest figures according to NATO propaganda is that approaching 200,000 Russian soldiers have lost their lives in this human tragedy. Which is the more accurate figure? I suspect neither TS nor anyone here really knows for sure….
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PGB
You go on about this “common life” Ukrainian workers are supposed to share with each other by which I presume you mean some vague abstraction that differentiates them from say, Russian workers. What precisely is it? It seems to be the subtext of what you are saying is nationalism. You are endorsing a nationalist worldview and of course, as a socialist, I vehemently oppose that – “shrilly” or otherwise. How could any socialist not do so?
As for your distinction between workers who organise militarily outside of the state and workers who enlist to fight for their capitalist state against some rival state – yes superficially there would appear to be some difference insofar as the former might not be motivated by nationalist sentiments. But in reality, how much traction would this distinction have? As a parallel, look at the relationship between the Wagner Group and the Russian military for example.
Your “non-state fighters” would need to coordinate with your “state fighters” not just over strategy and the provision of weaponry but also, military objectives. The current Ukrainian regime has as its objective the eviction of all Russian forces from what it regards as its national territory, including Donbas and Crimea. How could your non-state fighters go along with this without giving credence and legitimacy to nationalist propaganda and the spurious concept of the “sovereign nation-state?
But, apart from that, I stand by my claim that it is dumb beyond comprehension to organise militarily to resist an invading army intent upon wiping out all resistance. You are not asserting your “right to live” but making it far more probable that your life will be extinguished. That’s not sensible. Far better to become a refugee and I couldn’t give a flying fuck about jingoistic claptrap about this being the “coward’s way” out. Such language is reminiscent of the First
World War generals comfortably ensconced in their headquarters miles away from the Front, giving the order to execute some poor shell-shocked squaddie who lost the will to fight any longer. I have nothing but contempt for people who use this language.The same is true of the invading army. I have infinitely more respect for the Russian soldiers who deserted having asked themselves why the hell they were fighting against and destroying the lives of, ordinary Ukrainian workers with whom they had no quarrel whatsoever. They are more likely to desert when they are not being shot at by deluded nationalists on the other side.
This is the thing about this despicable death cult called nationalism. It divides workers from each other and mortally weakens our ability to challenge capitalism
For a liberal who seems to think that an obnoxious autocratic regime like the Zelensky regime is somehow worth defending, PGB certainly exhibits in abundance that peculiar liberal trait of sneering at a principled socialist opposition to capitalism´s wars on the grounds that things are oh-so-much-more complex and convoluted than us simple-minded socialists imagine. He airily declares; “this is what comes of a crude reductionist reading of Marx’s materialism and class analysis, where everything political is determined by economics”. Except of course in PGB´s case, there is no class analysis of anything. He is above that sort of thing.
No doubt, political factors do impact the economic situation and I have never denied this. Patron-client networks are a good example, these are a feature of both the Russian and Ukrainian regimes, both of which have been noted for their high levels of endemic corruption according to the Transparency index. (Ukraine comes in at number 122 out of 180 countries, and Russia at number 136). There is a revolving door between politics and economics and their respective actors. But that is no excuse to completely dismiss a Marxian class analysis of the situation in the way that PGB does in true liberal fashion.
PGB declares
“Robbo is bound to view Putin as a capitalist and of course Zelensky has to be a capitalist too. In fact neither are capitalists. Nor is there any credible evidence that they are acting at the behest of capitalists or in the broad interests of capital”
Actually, whether Putin or Zelensky as individuals are capitalists is not important to the thesis that a capitalist regime acts primarily in the interests of a capitalist class. In the Soviet Union, according to his daughter, Stalin left his desk with unopened envelopes stuffed with money. As a dictator, he didn’t need the physical cash. Political influence easily converted into economic power. For what it is worth, Zelensky´s personal fortune has been officially disclosed as being $8.2 million (though what it is unofficially worth in a corrupt country like Ukraine is anyone´s guess). I suppose that would qualify as just about scraping into the bottom runs of the capitalist class. Putin´s personal wealth is likely to be much greater and Forbes did an analysis of this some years ago which produced different estimates according to which explanatory model you use – the highest estimate amounting to $200 billion (https://www.ceotodaymagazine.com/2022/03/how-rich-is-vladimir-putin/). There is strong evidence that Putin has an equity stake in various properties here in Spain, for example as I have mentioned before.
But, as I said, the argument that both regimes act essentially in the interest of the capitalist class does not depend on the leadership of these regimes being capitalist themselves. It is the very nature of capitalism itself that these regimes seek to administer that requires them to do this. They must serve the interest of capital upon which their tax revenues depend amongst other things.
PGB asserts_ “Nor is there any credible evidence that they are acting at the behest of capitalists or in the broad interests of capital.” To which I respond – BULLSHIT!. The very fact that a class of exceedingly rich and obviously capitalist individuals exists is proof positive of this fact. They exist because these capitalist regimes allow them – nay, actively encourage them – to exist.
No doubt PGB, like the liberal he is, will say that I am just being “reductionist” here. But I invite him to imagine what would happen if these regimes took steps to economically eliminate this class for example through punitive levels of taxation. What would happen is capital would drain out of the country. Political regimes around the world clearly don’t relish the prospect of capital flight. On the contrary, they go out of their way to attract foreign capital even to the extent of muzzling local trade union movements to ensure a compliant local workforce that would be suitably attractive to foreign investors. The state is a pimp for capitalism. Nothing to do with the class war, eh, PGB? Would saying there was a class war going on be too reductionist for your ever-so-sophisticated liberal outlook?
Finally, I cannot let PGB get away with this liberal balderdash:
“Always consistent, Robbo finds it “dumb beyond comprehension” that workers risk losing their lives, becoming seriously wounded, or having their homes destroyed, all for the sake of a “tacky cloth called a flag”. Here again, the only meaning Robbo gives to workers taking up arms to defend their common life is to say that they are “heeding the call of a capitalist regime”. Maybe they are. But they may also be heeding the call of their conscience in believing it right to defend their lives when it’s their lives and the lives of others that are directly threatened. What’s incomprehensible about that?”
Where to begin in deconstructing this gibberish? Perhaps most obviously if you are a “Ukrainian” worker so intent upon defending your life in the face of an approaching army why not do what sheer commonsense tells you to do and get the hell out of this situation? I have far more respect for the refugees than for the deluded patriots who feverishly imagine they have a “common life” to defend in the form of the “imaginary community” called “Ukraine”. What is so different about their common life from that of the equally deluded “Russian” soldier who feverishly imagines “Ukrainian” workers are his mortal enemies? Where is the sense in “defending your right to live” by very clearly putting your life at risk? It is indeed, “dumb beyond comprehension”.
No PGB – what you are defending is the sick death cult of nationalism for the sake of that peculiarly perverse product of capitalism – the nation-state – that you so fondly identify with. This in clear opposition to the Marxian idea that “workers have no country” – a sentiment you might have heard of since you claim to have had contact with many Marxists No socialist worth their salt would regard your views with anything but the uncompromising hostility they so richly deserve.
TRUE BLOCKHEAD: “No, I was merely pointing out that socialism and a state are not incompatible.”
If the state is essentially a class tool that a ruling class use to rule over an exploited class (according to socialist theory) and if socialism is a classless society (again, according to socialist theory)
then…
How could socialism and the state be compatible???
The existence of a state must imply the existence of classes and therefore the absence of socialism
Over to you TB…
SPOT THE CONTRADICTION…
AJ¨: “Any Marxist will tell you – from the surplus labour of the worker as per the Labour Theory of Value.”
TRUE BLOCKHEAD “No shit Sherlock, but that surplus wealth is at the disposal of the community as a whole when an enterprise is nationalised.”AND
AJ: “How do those rich people acquire their wealth? Again any Marxist will tell you. From the theft of labour of the workers according to the Labour Theory of Value.”
TRUE BLOCKHEAD: Newsflash! Water still wet, fire still hot.“in case you hadn’t noticed I don’t seriously agree with the claim. Nation states are a necessary evil. The Palestinians have no nation state and look at them. Torn asunder by the wolves. Ask the Somalis what it’s like having no state. Socialists can and do have states. Where you got the idea that states must be capitalist I’ve no idea. But then again nothing you say makes much sense. Your thinking is as convoluted and confused as all the other blockheads in your little gaggle of a “party”.”
__________________________Well, perhaps as a virulent anti-socialist and pro-capitalist Putinist, you are not likely to be particularly familiar with the Marxist theory of the state, I guess. A State is an institutional tool by which one class rules over another. The existence of the state, therefore, presupposes the existence of classes. A classless society, therefore, presupposes the disappearance of the state. Comprende?
So no – socialists do NOT have or can NOT logically have “their state”. The existence of a state precludes socialism and vice versa. So-called “socialists” who have assumed state power in various parts of the world are merely the administrators of capitalism (aka the wages system) in those parts of the world. Their state can only, therefore, be a capitalist state (as opposed to, say, a feudal state) since the system they operate is a form of capitalism called state-administered capitalism, or “state capitalism”.
Laughably (or should that be, disingenuously) you say “Where you got the idea that states must be capitalist I’ve no idea.” We have already explained several times where the idea comes from but as usual, you pay no attention. The Marxist position is pretty clear on this score. To quote Engels once again:
“The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine — the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital.” (Socialism; Utopian and Scientific)
If states are a “necessary evil” as you claim they are only a necessary part of operating and perpetuating a class-divided capitalist society which you apparently want to perpetuate yourself
You say in defense of this class institution called the state: “The Palestinians have no nation-state and look at them. Torn asunder by the wolves” LOL. And who, pray, do you think is “tearing them asunder” if not a state, (the Israeli state in this case) – the very institution you are so proud to defend!
You think “your” state will be different as far you are concerned insofar as it affords you protective shelter much like a mother hen, her chicks. How naive can you get? Capitalist states are hostile to the interests of the working class the world over and will always side with the interests of their domestic capitalists at the end of the day – as they must, and as capitalism itself dictates.
Amusingly, you earlier drew attention to the fact that the Ukrainian state has now inflicted compulsory conscription on Ukrainian workers in order to use them as cannon fodder in its capitalist war against Russian imperialism. Even by the pathetic logic of your own argument, the suggestion that states are needed to prevent lives from being torn asunder is surely a sick joke. The lives of millions of Ukrainian and Russian workers are currently being comprehensively “torn asunder” by their respective capitalist states. So much for your precious institution called the nation-state. As if it cares a flying fuck about you, you gullible fool
And you have the nerve to call socialists “blockheads”! It’s about time you took that ostrich head of yours from out of the sand in which it has been firmly wedged and have a serious good look at the world around you…
“And that is why you are an infantile ideologue. As long as nation states exist the only means of protecting oneself from the predations of other states is to have one of your own. Without it you’re a babe in the woods moments away from being torn to shreds by the wolves.”
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You have to despair at the sheer inanity of this feeble attempt to justify the continuation of capitalism and its core institution, the nation-state. Having agreed with the principle that “The working men have no country” TS continues: ” as long as nation-states exist the only means of protecting oneself from the predations of other states is to have one of your own”. Who is the “your” in your sentence TS???
It cannot be the workers you have in mind if you seriously agree with the socialist claim that “workers have no country”. It is not us you are addressing but one group of capitalists vis a vis another. And that has been clear as daylight all along. You support one capitalist regime vis a vis another and therefore the indefinite continuation of capitalism itself. The very (il)logic of your own argument commits you to indefinitely resisting socialism as an alternative to capitalism, since according to you “As long as nation states exist” you will continue to need to support the nation-state and hence capitalism
In other words a self-fulfilling prophecy!
Instead of sneering at what you characterise as the “infantilism” of the socialist position it is in fact the ONLY mature and logical way out of the impasse of endless capitalist warmongering that your position commits you to
“This is not a war of competing capitalisms. For the US/NATOstan it is an imperialist war for markets and resources but for Russia it is an existential war of defense against said imperialist aggression. The very existence of the entity known as Russia is at stake.”
========================================Of course it is a war of competing capitalisms. Russia is a capitalist state as are its backers. Ukraine is a capitalist state as are its backers. The very existence of the nation-state itself is a capitalist construct. The expansionist dynamic built into capitalism that expresses itself in a latent or manifest tendency towards imperialism in the widest meaning of the term – if not in Lenin´s absurdly narrow meaning – is fully evident in this war. In Russia´s case, the territorial expression of this imperialist tendency was pretty much self-evident in the annexation of Crimea – a place of great strategic interest – and the resource-rich Donbas as well as, more obviously, in the invasion of Ukraine itself
All the other reasons for Russia´s imperialism – like Russia is engaged in an “existential war of defense against said imperialist aggression” or Russia wants to “denazify Ukraine” (when both regimes are pretty much similar in outlook) – are just the usual BS pretexts advanced by every capitalist government to garner the support of its populace. Ukraine is no different. It is demonstrably untrue that the Zelensky regime – a far-right repressive obnoxious regime if ever there was one – stands as some kind of beacon of “democracy” and “freedom ” against Russian despotism. Zelensky himself, like Putin, is a corrupt businessman along with being head of state of a corrupt regime
All of these feeble wishy-washy excuses put forward by the sociopathic warmongers on both sides are just pure idealist explanations for a phenomenon that really requires a solid materialistic explanation. They are an ideological smokescreen and about as connected with reality as British propaganda during WW1 depicting German soldiers bayoneting babies. War brutalises all who support one side or another and turns them all into Fascists of one kind or another
Some voices raised against the madness of this capitalist war. Its an uphill struggle against the warmongers on both sides
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/11/05/ukrainians-deserve-ceasefire-now
“Thought I’d look the World Anti-Imperialist Platform up. They seem to be a bunch of “Marxist-Leninists” as the Maoists now call themselves.”
______________________________________These people are as bad as the left-wing supporters of the “Ukrainian national liberation struggle against Russian imperialism”. It is deliciously ironic that they both base their ideas and language on the same discredited and absurdly narrow Leninist definition of imperialism. They both end up supporting one capitalist regime against the other – a clear demonstration of the fact that they have no intention of ever thinking of transcending capitalism itself. In other words, both sides are pro-capitalist and therefore against the interest of the working class.
This bunch of pro-capitalists explicitly attacks the socialist position that workers have no interest in taking sides in this capitalist war:
“We further believe it to be of prime importance that workers should push back against and expose the lie that they have ‘no side’ in this war, since it is between ‘two imperialist groupings’ that are both enemies of the working and oppressed masses. ”
I have yet to hear an even remotely plausible reason as to why it would benefit Russian workers (or Ukrainian workers for that matter) to heed the call of the capitalist regime they live under and fight for the so-called “national interests”
of this capitalist state. Where is the advantage to workers to risk losing their lives, becoming seriously maimed, or having their homes destroyed all for the sake of a piece of tacky cloth called a flag? It’s dumb beyond comprehensionIt’s not just nationalist supporters of the Russian regime that socialists criticise but equally nationalist supporters of the Ukrainian regime. It is surprising – or perhaps not that surprising – the extent to which swathes of the Left, seemingly the more Trotskyist-oriented, have chosen to identify with the cause of Ukraine while the Stalinists have tended to side with Russia. Both have succumbed to the toxic anti-working-class mental disease called nationalism
Here´s a piece by one such leftist supporter of Ukraine that glosses over the repugnant nature of the Ukrainian regime. It does, however, contain some interesting snippets of information. Like this for example:
“For instance, they could have spoken with renowned historian, sociologist, and author Boris Kagarlitsky, whom I interviewed in September 2022 about the political, economic, and social factors behind the invasion. Benjamin and Davies might have been surprised to hear Kagarlitsky explain that, while it’s self-evident that NATO expansion was imperialist, it’s also true that much of the U.S. motivation was rooted not in targeting Russia but in absorbing the post-Soviet militaries of Eastern Europe into NATO (along with their hardware) in order to use them in far-flung operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Poland and Ukraine rank fourth and fifth in combat deaths in Iraq, for example.”
“And what of you? A professed socialist who despises socialism. Member of an ineffectual and irrelevant “party” with a membership of loons, snowflakes, do nothings and intellectual guttersnipes.”
________________________________________LOL This from a declared nationalist supporter of a capitalist regime who understands next to nothing about socialism which he has repeatedly dismissed with contempt. If anyone is a loon, snowflake, and guttersnipe TS qualifies eminently for the job
