The high-level summit conference between Trump and Putin last Friday in Alaska has dominated the news, and there will be more to come this week. The point of the conference was how to settle the bloody, dangerous war between Russia and Ukraine. In what quickly became a proxy war, Ukraine has been strongly backed by Europe and especially—until Trump took office—the U.S. Going in to the meeting, Trump had said he was demanding that Putin agree to a ceasefire as the first step; coming out, he dropped that demand. Since the conference, Trump has spoken highly of Putin and said that now the onus (the responsibility) is on the Ukrainian leader Zelensky to make a comprehensive deal with Putin before the ceasefire. 

Beyond that, nobody really knows what more Trump and Putin talked about or agreed on, and still less how this will play out. More will become clear this week. What goes down could very well have huge effects, and it’s important to get a sense of the deeper driving dynamics and possibilities.

One: We live in a world divided between capitalist-imperialist powers, each driven by the logic of this system to fight for supremacy. Right now, every imperialist power is spending huge amounts of money to build up and modernize their arsenals, including nuclear weaponry, and hone their strategy. The main rivals in this fight for domination are the U.S. and China, locked in increasingly bitter contention. Russia, with its massive nuclear arsenal, is a major player in this “mix.” But a new war between any of these powers—which could erupt by design or accident—would be disastrous, and possibly even spell the end of humanity.

Three and a half years ago, Russia launched a bloody and utterly unjust invasion of Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands have died in this war, and many more have been crippled and maimed. But with the possible exception of a brief period at the outset of the Russian invasion, this has NOT mainly been a struggle for national liberation by the Ukrainian people. Instead, the U.S. and Europe heavily backed Ukraine and turned it into a proxy war—an arena in which the U.S. and Russia dueled over the division and plunder of the world. (For documentation on how and why that is so, go here and here.)

Under Biden, the U.S. provided Ukraine with billions of dollars in arms, intelligence on Russian forces, and high-level strategic “advice.” The prospect of civilization-ending nuclear war became extremely immediate. Not only did the two major nuclear powers oppose each other over the invasion, at different points Russia’s leader Putin, or one of his minions, reminded the world that Russia possessed nuclear weapons. At one point, Biden even admitted that such a war was more likely than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis 60 years ago—a crisis in which the world was literally on the immediate brink of U.S.-Russian nuclear war!¹ Now 60 years later, these two imperialist powers were again risking the end of human civilization in a fight over how the world would be divided!

In the 2024 election campaign, Trump said he opposed the war in Ukraine. He claimed that it would never have happened if he were president, and promised he would get a peace agreement on day one of his presidency. He obviously has not up to now been able do that. Complex and strategic interests are at stake, having to do not with whether, but how to compete against the main U.S. rival, China—including in military conflict that could easily lead to war. (Trump recently complained on Fox News that Biden’s strategy drove Russia closer to China—and there is more than a little truth to that.) The various forces around Trump do not want to compromise those interests at a time when the competition among the imperialists is growing increasingly intense; and it is very possible that there are conflicts within the regime over how to carry this off. In particular, Russia’s view of where its interests lie—and what it must do to achieve those interests—may not “fit into” what the Trump administration wants to see happen.

In short, this is an extremely delicate and high-stakes gamble—a gamble which could actually mean the end of humanity!! This dynamic is one thing which both the fascists and those in the ruling class who oppose them basically agree on. To these monsters, survival of their system—of their perch within it—means more than life itself! But what interests do the masses of people worldwide have in such a conflict? NONE—other than preventing (or stopping) it and ENDING the system that repeatedly gives rise to this kind of thing!

Two: The domination of the U.S. government apparatus by fascists makes this whole situation even more dangerous. 

Trump’s volatility—that is, his combination of explosiveness and impulsive unpredictability—along with the slavishness of his followers toward his every twist and turn—are built into Trump/MAGA fascism. This makes it more likely that a war could occur through miscalculation, or even in a fit of Trumpian ego. And that makes it even more urgent that people come together in massive nonviolent resistance to DRIVE OUT this fascist regime… NOW!

Three: We need a whole new world and a fundamentally different system—one that can break humanity free of these deadly dynamics built into the capitalist-imperialist system. 

Humanity needs a world without exploitation and the divisions between peoples… a world in which people work together to provide abundance for all and we get beyond the absolutely needless exploitation, oppression, wars and environmental destruction of this capitalist-imperialist system we live under. Bob Avakian (BA) has brought forward the sweeping vision, firm foundation and concrete blueprint for such a world in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. BA has developed the strategy for the revolution we need to get there. More than that, and as that foundation, he’s brought forward the new communism—a much more fully scientific way to understand and change the world than anything humanity has had before. The new communism provides hope—on a solid scientific foundation.

Four: Now is a rare time—a time in which such a revolution is actually more possible. 

The threats of war, of ecological destruction, of extreme chaos and destruction and of the brutal fascist lockdown of society are both horrific and very real. There is no escaping them so long as we live under this system. But the very extremes to which the world is headed make revolution more possible. 

Why and how that is so—the nature of the problem and the character of the solution—is contained in many of BA’s works. You can start here with the statement 2025: A New Year—Profound New Challenges—And a Profoundly Positive Way Forward in the Face of Very Real Horror. This is not an easy truth to face; but once faced, it can be a liberating truth. Get with THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity to learn more about all this, and to get with people who are working night and day to build and prepare the forces for the new-communist revolution.

In light of all of this, the following from Bob Avakian stands out all the more sharply:

We can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to continue to dominate the world and determine the destiny of humanity. And it is a scientific fact that humanity does not have to live this way.