Class struggle will bring Russia to final victory, & will cure the anti-imperialist movement's internal problems

In his contribution to the April 2025 issue of The Platform, the anti-imperialist Dimitrios Patelis came to a shrewd analysis about Russia’s Ukraine operation: that disruptions from the country’s capitalist ruling class have brought major stagnation for the war’s progress. This problem is part of a much larger issue, one where the global anti-imperialist movement remains plagued by damaging capitalist influences. These influences can and will be thrown off, but that will require the world’s workers massively building up their power as a class.

The deficiencies in Russia’s military initiative are a direct symptom of the proletariat not yet having enough power. When you look at the data sets on the weeks when Russia has gained new territories, you find large stretches where Russia’s gains have indeed been stalled; between March 2023 and February 2024, in the vast majority of weeks Russia had no new breakthroughs, and the gains it did make during that time were quite small compared to the ones from earlier months. Since then, the Russian gains have increased again, but they’ve never gotten as substantial as they were during the operation’s first year. According to Patelis, these inconsistencies are not simply inevitable delays; they’re the product of a confusion in priorities, one that comes from the influence of liberal bourgeois elements within Russia.

“The tactics used by the RF Armed Forces―under the orders of the political leadership―the means, methods, forces involved and the direction of operations, do not seem to achieve the strategic initiative on the battlefields,” observed Patelis. “The initially declared ‘strategic objectives’ (‘denazification’ and ‘demilitarisation’ of Ukraine) remain vague, while even greater confusion is sown by political officials and diplomats as to the constantly changing territorial claims... This ambiguity of the objectives, combined with ideological confusion, is affecting the morale of the armed forces.”

A key part of the problem, concluded Patelis, is that Russia’s bourgeois government has not been willing to make the total destruction of Ukraine’s fascist state one of its objectives:

It is unequivocally clear that the forces of the imperialist axis have systematically constructed the Nazi regime in Kyiv as a “battering ram” and “strike force” for the destruction and dissolution/conquest of the RF itself. Therefore, if even the smallest territory of this entity remains as a state formation, it will continue to serve as a fascist instrument of the axis, available for new murderous adventurism of a revanchist nature. A formation that will not only be “anti-Russian”, but will be promoted as a model for the fascisation of European and other countries, in the framework of the militarisation of the economy and society that imperialism will need for the further spread of war. Consequently, despite the rhetoric and tactics of the political leadership of the RF, any objective other than the total defeat and unconditional surrender of this regime is, in reality, inconsistent with the character of the conflict in the Ukrainian theatre of WWIII and works to the advantage of the axis of aggression.

Since Patelis made this assessment, the objective conditions for victory over fascism have gotten better. The Trump administration’s insistence on taking a neocon posture towards Russia is actually the thing that’s brought this improvement; because Washington has kept making demands which Russia would never agree to, Russia’s anti-imperialist forces are now much better able to make their argument.

The external circumstances have created a mandate for Russia's government to commit to this war, which is a key reason why Russia has continued on its recent streak of territory expansions. But the extent and scale of these gains are still being limited by the subjective limitations upon the anti-fascist effort; by the fundamental control the capitalist class holds over the country, which the workers movement hasn’t yet managed to throw off. Until this class contradiction within the anti-imperialist camp is sufficiently overcome, the imperial forces will maintain advantages in key areas.

It’s not just on the European front where this problem exists for the anti-imperialist movement, and Russia isn’t the only place in which bourgeois elements are having a corrosive effect on the struggle. Iran is the other major example of a country that’s come to be in conflict with the imperialists due to internal revolutionary influence, but that remains a capitalist state, and so vacillates between resistance and appeasement. I’ve brought up many times the problems that Iran’s liberal reformers have caused for the Ayatollah’s resistance efforts. But what those of us in the United States primarily need to focus on are the ways that bourgeois ideology–and the profit-driven influencers who’ve propagated that ideology across “alt” media–have set back our own movement-building efforts.

In a country where the anti-imperialist movement has at least already managed to gain substantial sway over the government, the problem of capitalist influence looks like the bourgeoisie undermining anti-imperialist policies. In a country whose government and state effectively act under the total dictatorship of monopoly capital, and that exists as the center of global financial power, this problem instead looks like the ruling class cultivating a controlled opposition. It looks like certain “dissident” commentators being boosted by the algorithms so that they can propagate ideas which will neutralize the popular struggle, making it tied into idealistic notions about what victory for the masses will mean.

In both cases, lack of sufficient power for the proletariat is at the root of the ill. The U.S. workers movement was crippled, largely in tandem with the destruction of the Soviet Union; and in the absence of the institutional strength that the workers used to enjoy, any antiwar or dissident movement that emerges can easily be absorbed by the false opposition forces. The outcome is that those who enter into dissident politics tend to get pulled to the right; that was what Caitlin Johnstone observed this year in response to the betrayals from Tulsi Gabbard and RFK:

While the power and influence offered by right wing “populist” factions can be tempting, that power and influence only exists because those factions are supported and defended by the empire itself. Public discontent is being corralled toward establishment-friendly political structures so that it doesn’t head anywhere that can threaten the mechanics of the empire, while authentic opposition to capitalism, militarism and empire building is viciously subverted by any means necessary. Bernie Sanders and AOC play the same role on the other side of the aisle, by the way, as do ostensibly leftist media like TYT who herd people back into support for the Democratic Party. Real opposition to real power is not permitted to ascend to the presidency of the world’s most powerful government. It is marginalized, smeared and subverted, and kept as small as possible.

These co-optation efforts by our own ruling class, and the sabotage efforts of the Russian or Iranian elites, are intertwined–as these foreign bourgeoisies are not independent from the world capitalist center. These different wings of global capital have been collaborating by selling a false concept of “peace,” where supposedly if Washington simply makes deals with Russia and Iran, the U.S. will no longer be a war-maker. The big, glaring factors which disprove such ideas are the Gaza genocide, and the empire’s plans for war with China. The U.S. seeks to draw China’s partners into Washington’s orbit, thereby isolating both the Palestinians and the PRC; this has been the imperial strategy hidden behind Trump’s “peace” rhetoric.

Every time such diplomatic tricks have succeeded in influencing our country’s antiwar movement, it’s hurt our ability to assist the Palestinian struggle, and to defend China; which are two of the biggest priorities right now. We’ll either learn from the errors that have contributed to these problems, and orient ourselves around the class struggle; or stay stuck in a cycle of defeats, to the consequence that our present catastrophes grow even larger.

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