Russia and China are NOT Imperialist states
Statement by the Liaison Committee for the Fourth
International
ON THE US/EU/NATO ATTACK ON THE UKRAINE
We need to tackle the ideological justification advanced by
both the pro Imperialist side and the fence-sitting third campist “neither
Moscow nor the US/EU/Nato but the international working class” side; that both
Russia and China are Imperialist states (“Eastern Imperialism”). Therefore any
conflict between either or both of them and US-dominated global Imperialism
(“Western Imperialism”) is a conflict between rival Imperialist powers and
therefore revolutionary socialists should support neither in that war. We
should advocate revolutionary defeatism for ourselves and for the
Russian/Chinese working class, i.e. they should seek the defeat of their own
bourgeoisie in order to combat the imperialist chauvinism that sweeps the
masses in wartime via its main conduit in modern times, the Labour and trade
union bureaucracy.
We content that this is fundamentally wrong, that neither
Russia nor China are Imperialist powers in the Marxist sense and that therefore
in any conflict between Imperialism and these states it is necessary to form an
Anti Imperialist United Front with them either singly or together if both are
simultaneously attacked.
The balance of forces internationally is nothing like in the
periods before WWI or WWII when roughly equal imperialist power blocs faced
each other; now the economic and military power is overwhelmingly on the side
of US Imperialism and its NATO allies.
Now we say that in this conflict today in the Ukraine
revolutionary defeatism is equal to national chauvinism in western imperialist
countries because neither Russia or China are Imperialist countries.
We caution newer comrades against bandying about the term
“Imperialism” as groups like the AWL does in imitation to how it is used in the
bourgeois mass media. In Marxist terms “Imperialism” has a precise meaning and
this is the rule of finance capital. We take this quote from Trotsky in 1939,
when the old semi-feudal empires of pre-WWI were in the dustbin of history, to make
that point:
“History has known the “imperialism” of the Roman state
based on slave labour, the imperialism of feudal land-ownership, the
imperialism of commercial and industrial capital, the imperialism of the
Czarist monarchy, etc. The driving force behind the Moscow bureaucracy is
indubitably the tendency to expand its power, its prestige, its revenues. This
is the element of “imperialism” in the widest sense of the word which was a
property in the past of all monarchies, oligarchies, ruling castes, medieval
estates and classes. However, in contemporary literature, at least Marxist
literature, imperialism is understood to mean the expansionist policy of
finance capital which has a very sharply defined economic content. To employ
the term “imperialism” for the foreign policy of the Kremlin – without
elucidating exactly what this signifies – means simply to identify the policy
of the Bonapartist bureaucracy with the policy of monopolistic capitalism on
the basis that both one and the other utilize military force for expansion.
Such identification, capable of sowing only confusion, is much more proper to
petty-bourgeois democrats than to Marxists (our emphasis).” [1]
Michael Pröbsting’s damn lies and statistics
But what about economically? Michael Pröbsting of the
Austrian-based RCIT has produced a big pamphlet to prove, on behalf of the
whole third campist crew, how wrong we in Socialist Fight and the LCFI are and
that both are imperialist. He even calls his work, Russia as a Great
Imperialist Power, [2] with a front cover cartoon of Uncle Sam facing a very
angry Russian bear which is clearly just about to rip his head off. We would
suggest that this is an illegitimate use of imperialist propaganda in a
self-proclaimed Marxist magazine.
The work is replete with extensive charts and tables to
statistically prove his point that Russia and China are the new rising
Imperialist powers about to dominate the planet and the USA is the declining
power, soon about to be eclipsed by these bear-like and yellow menaces, which
are our own and everybody’s enemies and the real danger. Much of the work
proves only that these are unequal societies, as were the former deformed and
degenerated workers’ states, though not anything like as unequal as their
successor capitalist states are now. But even the more relevant statistics and
charts are one sided and very misleading (damn lies and statistics) as to the
real economic relationships between Russia and China and global imperialism and
who poses the military dangers.
RUSSIAN MONOPOLIES
Pröbsting says:
“In sum, in less than two decades a number of Russian
monopolies have been formed which exert a total grip on the country’s economy.
Russia’s capitalism is probably more monopolized than most other imperialist
economies. As we will see below in more detail, these monopolies are involved
in all forms of businesses – starting with oil and gas extraction, metal mining
and manufacturing, and up to finance. Lenin’s definition of an imperialist
power is obviously applicable when it comes to Russia’s monopoly capital.” [2]
But we must ask who owns these “Russian monopolies”? The
energy giant Gazprom is just over 50% state owned but most of the rest of the
shares are in the hands of foreign capital. And most of the rest of the major
“monopolies” in Russia and China which are listed as “state owned” are
considerably less than 50% state owned, 25% being typical and as low as 13% in
some cases. Of course western imperialists complain bitterly that this is
grossly unfair, that they should be allowed free access to all shares and not
just to the “B” shares that are freely floated. And Pröbsting can point to
foreign direct investment (FDI) inward and outward and the “round tripping” of
oligarch’s funds to Cyprus etc so they can reinvest them in Russia tax free but
always he avoids the entire global picture in his eagerness to make his
imperialist point.
For instance China and Japan are by far the two largest
holders of US government stocks and bonds, which they are obliged to buy to
offload their dollar surpluses and keep open the US consumer market, by far the
largest in the world. But these stocks and bonds only pay between 1% to 2%
interest whereas the FDI of the US in Russia and China yields over 20%
interest. And the dollar as the trading currency for not only oil but most
other commodities in the planet gives the US a huge advantage; some would say the
most important of all its holds over the global markets. The continued threat
to this global monopoly can be reasonably designated as the prime cause for the
war against Iraq in 2003, against Libya in 2011 and against Ukraine in 2014. If
the US loses this immense advantage their empire’s days are indeed numbered.
Combined with that are the successive bouts of Quantative
Easing, i.e. devaluing the dollar which reduces the value of the dollar
holdings of these two countries in particular, but also Rissia, the Gulf
States, Brazil and others. And there is the question of the gold holdings. It
is rumoured that the US looted Libya’s gold reserves at the end of the war in
2011, it has not returned to Germany its gold bullion as Merkel requested in
the end of 2012 [4] and it has just looted the entire gold reserve of the
Ukraine on 7 March 2014, some $1.8 billion worth. [5] By these mechanisms the
whole world is forced to subsidise the US economy.
THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
A large portion of that subsidy from unwilling foreign
trading partners goes on the US military which in turn is used to menace and/or
invade any country that seriously threatens that monopoly. US military spending
is kept high by the powerful military industrial complex (MIC) which President
Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of in 1961:
“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a
large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence —
economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house,
every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for
this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications.
Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure
of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced
power exists and will persist. ” [3]
The MIC is now far more powerful than they were in 1961 and
every US Senator and almost all Representatives are in the pay of the MIC
lobby, which needs constant wars to keep profits and shareholders’ dividends
high and their employees in work, as Eric Zuesse noted above.
Pröbsting says:
Today the Russian state-capitalist sector is crucial for the
economy. It plays a decisive role among many Russian monopolies. For example,
the state has retained Golden Shares in 181 firms. 15 State-backed companies
account for 62% of Russia’s stock market.
But according to Russia beyond the Headlines:
“Foreign investors continue to have a decisive influence
over the Russian stock market. According to Sberbank KIB analysts, they own
about 70 percent of free floating Russian shares. But Russian investors are
still wary of the stock market after the 2008-2009 crash. One third of
investors active in Russia are U.S. funds; another third are funds from
continental Europe; and the remaining third are U.K. funds. The biggest foreign
investor (more than $5 billion) has turned out to be the Norwegian Government
Pension Fund, followed by Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund (about
$4.7 billion) and the Oppenheimer fund (with slightly less than $3 billion
invested in Russian stocks).” [4]
This makes quite clear that far from being imperialist
powers both Russia and China are no more than semi-colonial countries, albeit
very large and advanced ones, with some features of imperialism and which do
aspire to be imperialists themselves in time. They are not linked to the global
web of US Imperialism in the same way as minor imperialisms like Holland and
Belgium or allied to it in a more equal though still subordinate way like
Japan, Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada. No, they are in the upper level of
semi-colonial countries and recognise themselves as such by allying as the
BRICS; Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
CONCLUSION
We have outlined the development of three distinct current
within the far left, the right which has taken a pro-Maidan position on the
Ukraine, the most extreme examples are the signatories of the Statement of the
Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign of Chris Ford; Labour Representation
Committee, Socialist Workers Party, Revolutionary Socialism 21, A World To Win,
and Socialist Resistance (Fourth International) and a few more internationally
like the CWI and the LIT (FI). The centre ground we have listed, some of whom
had shifted sharply to the left over the Ukraine and those more consistent
revolutionary Trotskyists who have taken a strong anti imperialist line on
Libya and Syria from the beginning. We have outlined our theoretical, economic
and political rejection of the theories of the international class struggle
being driven by the inter-Imperialist conflicts between Western US-led
Imperialism and Eastern Imperialism of Russia and China (even Venezuela where
the conflict is the result of the incursions of China into the US backyard some
ridiculously propose).
We have proposed an international solidarity campaign to
defend what is now the new Novorossiya Union of eastern Ukraine and its
organised working class led by the Borotba Union and the Communist Party of the
Ukraine. We have also proposed an Anti Imperialist United Front with the “devil
and his grandmother” including Putin himself as the demands that working class
should make on Russia to defend it against the fascist onslaught from Kiev.
Lastly this orientation is primarily designed to build a new revolutionary
socialist working class leadership as part of a reforged Fourth International.
● Defend the Novorossiya Union against the fascist attacks,
smash the illegal Kiev regime installed by the USA/CIA!
● Form armed workers Militias to defend the premises and
organisations of the working class!
● No faith in the corrupt oligarchs, nationalise their
factories, transport systems and land!
● Smash the reactionary, pro-Western imperialist regime in
Kiev!
● For an anti Imperialist United Front with all forces now
fighting the fascists!
● Demand material assistance from Putin in arms and troops
to defeat the US global conspiracy against Russia and China, Syria, Iran and
Venezuela!
● Forward to the building of a Ukrainian revolutionary
socialist leadership, a section of the reforged Fourth International!
Notes
[1] Leon Trotsky, In Defence of Marxism, Again and Once More
Again on the Nature of the USSR, (October 1939),
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/idom/dm/04-again.htm
[2] Russia as a Great Imperialist Power, The formation of
Russian Monopoly Capital and its Empire – A Reply to our Critics, By Michael
Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 18 March
2014, http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/imperialist-russia/
[3] Dwight D. Eisenhower, Speech on Military Industrial
Complex, 1961: http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
[4] Source: Russia Beyond the Headlines – January 22, 2014
Anna Kuchma,
http://rbth.com/business/2014/01/22/who_owns_the_russian_stock_market_33437.html)
Liga Comunista—Brasil
Tendencia Militante Bolchevique—Argentina
Socialist Fight—Britain, 4 June 2014
