Edith Fischer denounces the reasoning given in Eliza MacDonald’s CC minority statement for voting against ratifying the CPGB-PCC statement on the Russo-Ukraine War. She asserts that MacDonald’s decision undermines the mandate of the RCO’s 2024 General Conference. Furthermore, it is argued that the minority statement demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of imperialism as a matter of policy rather than an advanced stage of capitalist development.
Eliza MacDonald has submitted her letter detailing why she voted against adopting the CPGB letter calling for a principled socialist response to the war in Ukraine. I am in favour of adopting the resolution, and I support the Central Committee endorsing this letter. While MacDonald is well within her rights to dissent from the Central Committee’s position, the position she would have the organisation adopt would throw us into a confused marsh and undermine the democratic mandate of the RCO Conference.
Let us be clear on the terms of the debate. Regardless of what one thinks of the letter circulated in Weekly Worker, the RCO Conference already established the organisation’s line on the Ukraine conflict. Allow me to quote at some length from the Perspectives 2024-25 paper adopted by Conference:
20. The re-emergence of inter-imperialist competition in the imperialist world order is nowhere better expressed than in Eastern Europe. Here, the semi-imperialist power of Russia is locked in a feverish struggle with the US-NATO bloc. The aim of Russian capital is to assert its rights to a distinctive sphere of influence in the territory of the former USSR. The aim of the American-led imperialist bloc is to exhaust the Russian state, with the eventual aim of effecting a regime change in Russia. Having done that the aim is to ‘encircle’ China – and through war, regional rebellion, a colour revolution, etc, bring about regime change in Beijing. Ideologically, cover for rebooting US global hegemony is being provided by hypocritical claims about championing democracy and standing up for the rights of small nations.
21. Disgracefully, sections of the left have sided with the Ukrainian state, in reality their own governments, with some even calling for increases in NATO arms shipments. Naturally, social imperialism excuses itself with all sorts of pseudo-socialist and democratic phrases.
22. Our opposition to the interests of the US-NATO bloc should not be understood as support for the Russian Federation, a semi-peripheral capitalist state led by an oligarchic-personalist clique, that sits atop the corpse of the former Soviet Republic. In the war between Russian semi-imperialism and the imperialist ambitions of the Western Powers, we adopt a position of revolutionary defeatism.
23. We reject the calls by some in the socialist movement to join in an international popular front in support of “multipolarity”. In the contest between the great bandit and the lesser bandit, we do not prefer the lesser bandit. Any re-organisation of the world system on bourgeois terms would simply be a redivision of the diminishing surplus value extracted from the world working class. International proletarian revolution is the only force that can tear down world imperialism.
Here the organisation’s line could not be clearer: Russia is a semi-imperialist state, the war between NATO and Russia is inter-imperialist in character, and we repudiate any attempt at forming a “Global Popular Front” in the name of Multipolarity. Of course, comrades are free to agitate for whatever view they may like. However, any attempt to overturn this clear mandate at the Central Committee should be vigorously opposed. The situation has not fundamentally shifted in such a way as to make a change in line necessarily.
Let us briefly turn our gaze towards the argument offered by Comrade MacDonald in her minority dissension. Eliza argues that support for Russia’s “defensive” war is necessary to avoid the Balkanisation of the Russian Federation. Certainly, we do not support the imperialist program of grinding Russia under its boots. However, the question at play is whether the working class should subordinate itself to the interests and class program of the Russian capitalists.
Is Russia Imperialist?
Comrade MacDonald argues that while the Russian state does undertake some “imperialist policy” in relation to their immediate neighbours, the Russian social formation as a whole is not characterised by imperialism. This is a misunderstanding of the nature of imperialism. Imperialism is a stage in the development of the capitalist world economy – it becomes a logical and historical necessity once capitalism reaches a certain stage of development. It is the imperative of all capitalist states to pursue a policy of imperialism. However, this does not mean all imperialists are equal. The capitalist classes of Peru or Iraq are not sufficiently developed to pursue an imperialist policy of their own. Most likely, they never will be. However, middling capitalist powers, such as Russia and the United Arab Emirates, are capable of playing the role of lesser imperialist within the global semi-periphery.
Russia, in function, is a junior partner in world imperialism. Russian capitalists benefit from the exploitation of minerals in the Sahel. Russian foreign investment overwhelmingly falls in the Commonwealth of Independent States, the United Arab Emirates, and in China. In all these countries, Russian capitalists benefit from lower wages and tight control over trade union organising. In practice, Russia serves as a reactionary policeman in Eurasia. Nowhere is this clearer than in Kazakhstan. When the Tokayev government – a government of exploiters which represents the power of local capitalists – was faced with working class rebellion, it was the intervention of Russian troops that secured the rule of the gangsters. The Russian military serves as the local enforcer of the power of the capitalists.
Multipolarity
When the war in Ukraine began, the RCO (at the time a single cell operating in Brisbane) issued a statement arguing that the only beneficiaries of this war would be the imperialists. This remains true, and has become clearer as time has gone on. The Russian military offensive into Ukraine has been a disaster for Russian and Ukrainian workers. It has exacerbated a bleeding sore in Eastern Europe, it has displaced millions of workers, it has strengthened NATO, and the crippling of European industry has actually strengthened US imperialism. The opening of a front in Europe has allowed the Azeri government to carry out mass deportations of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. In Russia, the main beneficiaries have been the war industries and the capitalists who benefit from selling gas and oil to Europe via China and India. As such, it is unclear how the Russian involvement in Ukraine is advancing a “multipolar world”.
It is certainly true that the emergence of an industrially powerful and financially independent Chinese state threatens the hegemony of the American imperialists – just as the emergence of an industrially powerful and financially independent German imperialism threatened the hegemony of the British Empire at the dawn of the last century. This does not mean that communists should necessarily support the lesser bandit against the greater. Inter-imperialist conflict does open possibilities for working class struggle. However, it also presents challenges: resurgent nationalism and the subordination of the revolutionary movement to the interests of competing imperialist powers being two of the most obvious.
Many communists have made the error that MacDonald would have us make today. Not least of these was W.E.B. Dubois, who in opposing the imperial and white supremacist interests of his own capitalist class, argued for the progressive character of Japanese imperialism in Asia. It is true that Japanese imperialism strengthened nationalist movements that would later go on to take power, such as in Indonesia. However, communists would rightly feel appalled at supporting the imperialist ambitions of Tokyo. Japanese imperialism, while certainly challenging the rule of white colonists in the East, did not emancipate Asia from colonial rule – it only re-ordered the existing capitalist-imperialist system into an economic sphere under their influence.
Just as communists do not support small capitalists against big capitalists, so too do we not support the smaller capitalist powers against the greater ones. Instead, we must uphold a universal policy of the independent power of the working class. Proletarian independence is not possible if the Russian working class is unable to oppose its own capitalists’ military adventures.
Relevant context:
Establishing a principled left – Communist Party of Great Britain’s Provisional Central Committee
CC Minority Statement on the CPGB (PCC)’s Statement on War in Ukraine – Eliza MacDonald
PARTISAN! 
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