Russia has amassed 100,000 troops on the border of its neighbor, Ukraine, in Eastern Europe. There is a wide range of possible next steps, including the possibility that Russia will invade all or part of Ukraine. A CNN analyst said on January 21 that a Russian invasion of Ukraine “could trigger the biggest clash of regular conventional armies in Europe since World War II.” (For more on possible scenarios and dangers, and the hypocrisy of the US stance, see our coverage last week, and for background on the origins and nature of Russia’s moves in relation to Ukraine, see “Ukraine and Kazakhstan: Crises, Volatility and the Danger of War on the Russia Border.”)

There is heated debate within the ruling class—its sharply divided and different sections—over how to respond to the mobilization of Russian troops on the Ukraine border. Biden insists that the U.S. response must be strategically calculated and factor in changing geo-strategic alignments, and complicated and contradictory economic relationships between U.S. allies in Western Europe (especially Germany) and Russia, even as he ramps up threats, warning that Russia will pay a heavy price if it invades Ukraine.

Other ruling class politicians and operatives (including media commentators) demand different strategies. Republi-fascist Senator Tom Cotton insists “we could possibly deter Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine… by providing Ukraine with more anti-tank missiles and with anti-aircraft weapons…”¹  Fox Fascist “News” Tucker Carlson insists “Our attention to Ukraine drives Russia into alliance with the Chinese government².” Ross Douthat, an anti-Trump conservative opinion columnist for the New York Times, the “paper of record,” writes “One of the hardest challenges in geopolitics is figuring out how to conduct a successful retreat…. Now we face the same problem with Ukraine³.” (Emphasis added in all quotes)

In this sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry, Tom Cotton, Tucker Carlson and Ross Douthat are operatives for the ruling class and its different sections that run this country. When people like that say “we” need to do this to the Russians, or this is in “our” interests, all those with sense enough to understand that this is a system of global exploitation and oppression should respond, “Who you calling we, white man?”⁴… but the problem is “progressive” liberals also parrot these terms, and whatever their intent, end up objectively shilling for imperialist perspectives and interests, like Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of The Nation, a progressive magazine.⁵

“We” Don’t Rule This Country and Our Interests Lie with Humanity

Reality check: the rulers of this country are not fundamentally led in their decisions by what you tell them—even as mass protests, upheaval and rebellions, like the 1960s for example, shape and influence the political climate and context in which these decisions are made. This is a dictatorship of the capitalist-imperialist ruling class, even as it is sharply divided right now.    

But in terms of the illusions of what some may have, on “we the people” influencing such decisions, an example that shatters this: In 2003, in the face of the largest anti-war protests in the U.S.—and the world—in three decades, involving millions, the dominant section of the ruling class made a call to invade Iraq (an invasion that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, terrible long-term consequences for Iraq and the world, and ultimately a defeat for the U.S.). They did it because they assessed they had the need and basis then to reshape the whole Middle East to shore up their position at the top of a world of exploitation and oppression. And, as George Bush famously said at the time—referring to the massive protests—that wasn’t a decision that was going to be made by a “focus group.”  

Think about the questions people unthinkingly parrot opinions on. If you do a deep (or even a relatively superficial) dive into the arguments made by operatives and voices for this system and think critically about what they are saying, you hear things like: Would it be better for the U.S. to throw down with Russia over Ukraine or focus on preparing for war with China that could escalate into a nuclear war? Is Biden being ‘hard’ enough on the Russian leader, Putin, or too ‘soft’? What’s the best way to maintain U.S. domination of the production and flow of fuel in Europe and around the world? How can the U.S. rulers continue to dominate the supply chains that bring the cobalt mined by child laborers in Congo to dominate the electric car industry?

These are questions NO decent human being should want to help figure out an answer to! They are all framed by how best to maintain a system that crushes spirits and bodies in slums and sweatshops, a system where women are commodified and subject to endemic violence, a system that is pushing the climate crisis to and past the edge of sustaining human life. A system, at whose helm, the United States has committed genocide and slavery, war crimes, violence and torture at a scale unprecedented in history. Like Bob Avakian (BA) says in BAsics 1:7: “These imperialists make the Godfather look like Mary Poppins.”

Which Side Are You On?

The rulers of this country would have you siding with them in their global conflicts. And they (and all too many people who claim to speak for the people) want you to think and feel like you have a stake in the debates they have among themselves over how to tighten their chokehold on the people of the world.

The interests of humanity lie not in trying to help the rulers of this empire pursue their interests, but in working to overthrow this system. There is no America as we know it without the ghastly history and present-day reality of unjust wars for empire. And the people in this world have no stake in either imperialist coming out on top in the current standoff over Ukraine.

The dreams of so many that someday (to quote John Lennon) “the world will live as one” can only be made real with an outlook of internationalism. And the process of the emancipation of humanity is and will be a tightly interwoven global process. In BAsics BA gets to the heart of this: “Internationalism—The Whole World Comes First.”

Standing with humanity means being revolutionary defeatists!, in the event of the U.S.’s conflicts with other forces. As BA explains in The New Communism:

Revolutionary defeatism means that you oppose the actions of your own government and ruling class in carrying out their wars, which are wars for empire. It means that you welcome any setbacks they suffer in those wars, because that weakens their oppressive hold over masses of people, here and in the world more generally.

This holds even in a situation where the “other side” in a conflict with the U.S. Empire is no good either. That is, unfortunately, overwhelmingly the case in the world today, for example in the clash between the U.S. and its allies on the one side, and reactionary Islamic fundamentalism like the forces in power in Iran on the other. This does not mean just standing aside with the attitude that “we have no dog in this fight” while your rulers clash with their enemies. Nor does it mean “my enemy’s enemy is my friend.” BA addresses this challenge in The New Communism:

It is crucial that people come to see what the nature of these wars being waged by their government actually is, and why these wars have to be actively opposed; and even if you can’t, and shouldn’t, support the other side, you still have to have the basic approach of welcoming the defeat of your own government in the wars it is waging. The defeat of these imperialists should be welcomed because, number one, their wars are unjust, even if the people opposing them are also unjust. And, two, every such defeat weakens this system and its ruling class and brings closer the time when people can actually bring it down and bring something liberating into being in its place.  

So right now, even as it is necessary for people to understand that there are no “good guys” in the confrontation between the rival imperialist powers of Russia and the U.S. over Ukraine, our mission must be to oppose what “our own” ruling class is up to as part of working for a revolutionary overthrow of this whole system and all the misery it brings to the world.