Ukraine. The proxy war hoax falls apart

Contradictions and ending of a grotesque representation

Italian version

The sweeping sequence of the international events tests the schemes of analysis. This is certainly the case with the war in Ukraine.


REMOVING THE FACTS

As is well known, a dominant school of thought on the left has read the Russian war of invasion in Ukraine as a proxy war of the West against Russia through Ukraine. For three years, the proxy war scheme has risen to the rank of dogma, a sort of a priori in every discussion about the war. If facts contradict theory, so much the worse for the facts.

Putin’s infamous speech to the world on February 22, 2022, announcing the imminent invasion of Ukraine as reparation for the «Lenin's crime» that had granted Ukraine the self-determination with the Bolshevik revolution? Vanished. Biden’s public call to Zelensky to take shelter in Florida with his wife, on the very second day of the invasion, out of manifest distrust in the possibility of Ukrainian resistance to Russia? Vanished. The initial 60-kilometer long march on Kiev of the Russian tanks, with the aim of taking the Ukrainian capital? Vanished. Russia's call to the Ukrainian military in the early days of the war to overthrow the Zelensky government and replace it with a pro-Russian government? Vanished.

The whole origin of the Ukrainian war and the initial footprint of the crime have been canceled.

On the other hand, free from the unpleasant burden of facts, the story of the war has been able to easily soar into the realm of the imaginary. First of all in the representation of the “real causes” of the war.


THE ALLEGED CONTINUITY BETWEEN THE 2014 DONBAS WAR AND THE CURRENT WAR IN UKRAINE

The Russian invasion war of February 2022 was presented as a continuation of the war between Ukraine and the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics started in 2014. “The current war began eight years ago and no one admits it” was a strong piece of "campist" literature. Unfortunately, it confuses two wars which not only are different wars but are in many ways wars of opposite sign.

In 2014, and in the following years, a reactionary Ukrainian government (Poroshenko government), which emerged from the reactionary events on Euromaidan, attacked the democratic (linguistic) rights of the Russian-speaking populations of Donbass. Naturally, we did not hesitate to unconditionally defend the rights of self-determination of those populations, their resistance, their separatist republics (despite the red-brown nature of the governments of Lugansk and Donetsk, and the military support granted to them, in its own interest, by Russian imperialism).

In February 2022, the reactionary government of Russian imperialism invaded Ukraine not to defend Donbass but to first try to conquer Kiev, and then retreat into the military annexation of vast Ukrainian territories (well beyond Donbass). Consequently, we have unconditionally defended Ukraine's right to self-determination against Russia, and therefore its resistance (despite the bourgeois nature of the Ukrainian government, and the military support granted to it, in their own interest, by NATO imperialisms): this meant demanding Russia's withdrawal from the Ukrainian territories conquered and annexed after February 2022, and together with it the right to self-determination of the populations of Donbass (which for us is as valid today as it was yesterday).

Isn't it true that the democratic rights of all oppressed peoples must always be defended against all imperialisms and their wars?

Instead, no. The theory of proxy war not only absolves Russian imperialism and its annexations, but ignores the very right of self-determination of Donbass, today occupied (also) by Russia. A curious side effect of the proxy war theory.


NATO EXPANSION AND RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE

But the search for the “real causes” of the invasion of Ukraine was not limited to the previous eight years. It was extended to the thirty years following the fall of the Berlin Wall. In particular, the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe, after the collapse of the USSR, was exhibited as the most important evidence of the NATO's pushing for war. But it is in spite of logic and history.

NATO imperialist powers expanded to the East after the collapse of Stalinism – it is an indisputable fact. We, as PCL, have been consistently denouncing it, together with many others. All our campaigns against US imperialism, against the EU imperialist states, against their “humanitarian” wars (in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq...), over a period of thirty years, are evidence of it. We have been doing it, moreover, in polemic with those so-called “radical” leftists who voted for or endorsed the imperialist missions in exchange for ministries.

But the question is: is it possible to absolve the Russian invasion of Ukraine by bringing up previous invasions of other countries on the part of rival imperialist states? On the contrary, we should rather apply the opposite principle – to denounce all imperialist invasions, past and present, regardless of the imperialism involved and the population attacked. Often we've been told that nobody wants to “absolve” indeed the Russian invasion, but the aim is rather to “explain” the historical background that “caused” it. In particular, many improvised experts in geopolitics have produced explanations of this type. But here too, a serious historical analysis claims its rights.

Undoubtedly, every event is related to the context that preceded it. And it is certain that the current Great-Russian nationalist chauvinism wants to give back to Russia its past area of influence in Europe (and not only in Europe) that NATO imperialism took away from it in the past decades. But to say that for this very reason it is NATO that caused the Russian invasion of Ukraine is like saying that the imperialist Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which humiliated the defeated Germany, was as such the cause of Nazism, the Second World War, and the Jewish Holocaust.

The truth is that any absolutization of a single historical element (no matter how real it may be) undermines the understanding of reality to the point of reversing its meaning. The expansion of NATO in Europe in the 90s and early 2000s has certainly played a role in the rise, by reaction, of Great-Russian chauvinism. There is no doubt about it. But if that is the case, a much more direct role was played not by the expansion but by the repeated defeats of NATO imperialism, first in Iraq, then in Afghanistan, together with the decline of American hegemony in the world, after the great crisis of 2008 and the rapid rise of Chinese imperialism. Just as, on another side, the 1994 Budapest agreement by which Ukraine ceded to Russia all of its nuclear warheads in exchange for the Russian promise not to touch its borders, certainly played a role, ultimately.

Can one fail to see that these (also and above all) are the factors that encouraged Russian imperialism in its invasion of Ukraine? The exact opposite of the proxy war theory.


NATO IMPERIALISMS AND RUSSIAN IMPERIALISM. LEGENDS AND REALITY

The proxy war theory has removed from its radar the complex relationships among NATO imperialisms, the Ukrainian government, and Russian imperialism in favor of a pre-established and simplified script: “NATO imperialisms advocate for an all-out war against any possible peace negotiation; Russia is a victim of Atlanticist and warmongering extremism and Ukraine is a docile pawn of NATO's will to war” etc. Amen.

Many legends play a role in this. One above all: the fictitious representation of the famous Istanbul negotiation between Russia and Ukraine in March 2022. Legend has it that the parties were close to a peaceful gentlemen's agreement, but the British Prime Minister's intervention, under American pressure, blew it up, forcing Ukraine to continue the war. This representation is largely distorted, therefore false. In Istanbul, Russia had set as a decisive condition for a possible "peace" agreement, i.e. the reduction of the Ukrainian army to 80,000 units: it was a disarmament for Ukraine, and it meant giving up its capacity for resistance. Through negotiations, Putin wanted to cash in on the military objective that he had sensationally missed a month earlier at the gates of Kiev: in other words, he wanted a peaceful capitulation of Ukraine by default. This alone was the real breaking point of the negotiations. Of course, the propaganda rhetoric of British and American imperialism about the possible "strategic defeat" of Russia undoubtedly fed on the breakdown that had occurred. But the refusal of Ukraine to capitulate at the conditions set by Russia was decided primarily by Ukraine, not by imperialist puppeteers on behalf of Ukraine.


MILITARY SUPPORT AND INVOLVEMENT IN THE WAR. AN IGNORED DISTINCTION

More generally, various circles of the Italian left have presented the external support of NATO imperialisms to Ukraine – which was certainly decisive for its military stability – as "NATO's war against Russia". "If you arm a country at war, aren't you at war?" This concept has become popular for its simplicity in various circles. Unfortunately, it distorts reality. If we erase every distinction between military support for another country at war and direct participation in the war, we could say that the USSR and China were involved in a (world) war against the United States in the 60s until 1975, because of their military support (which was certainly decisive) for the resistance in Vietnam. We could say that British imperialism had already gone to war against Italy in 1936 because of its military support for Ethiopia's resistance against Mussolini. We could say that British and US imperialism had already gone to war against Japan in 1938 because of their military support for Chinese resistance against the Japanese invasion; and we could even say... that Stalin's USSR entered the war alongside Hitler against Great Britain and France between 1939 and 1941 because of its (also military) support for Nazi Germany during the infamous Molotov/Von Ribbentrop Pact.
And we could go on with endless examples. If we were to use this ridiculous and absurd simplification, we would have to rewrite the real history of the 20th century. And not only that.

Yet the theory of NATO's war against Russia because of its support for Ukraine is based precisely on this absurd reconstruction, that removes all contradictions from reality. As dialectics teaches us, contradiction is the living body of reality itself. And we have a lot of absolute and incontestable evidence of such contradictions, e.g. the refusal of NATO imperialisms to grant Ukraine the no-fly zone since the very beginning of the war; the long negotiations between NATO imperialisms and the Ukrainian government about the nature and use of each weapon supplied; the defeat of the Ukrainian military counteroffensive in 2023 due to the absence of any real air covering... What did these facts actually reveal? They simply revealed that the same NATO imperialisms that, in their own interest, supported Ukraine had the constant concern of not crossing the line between military support and their own involvement in the war: they were therefore busy avoiding the war against Russia, not promoting it. The entire narrative of the proxy war theory has erased that specific boundary between military support and involvement in the war.


THE PROXY WAR THEORY TESTED BY TRUMP

However, now a new problem arises. What happens to the proxy war theory in the wake of Trump’s new course? For three years the idea behind the proxy war has been a representation of imperialism as (exclusively) American imperialism. This representation ignored on the one hand the reality of the new imperialist powers (Russian and Chinese), and on the other the contradictions between US imperialism and European imperialisms (the latter were deprived of their imperialist nature, or incorporated into US imperialism, or both).

Now this entire representation is torn to pieces by reality. US imperialism, under Trump’s leadership, is opening up to direct negotiations with Russian imperialism on the partition of Ukraine, stabbing Ukraine in the back, and dumping the European imperialisms. It is a fact. Question: what is the nature of the ongoing war now? If the imperialism that “caused” it now allies itself with the imperialism that promoted it, who is fighting against whom? Who is now… “the agent of the war”? If Ukraine is only cannon fodder for US imperialism, why does it not stop fighting as Donald Trump is asking? If Russia is a victim of American aggression, why does it continue to bomb Ukraine now that the “aggressor” is retreating and even going over to the Russian side? And more: if Zelensky is just a puppet of Washington, as some have been claiming for three years, why did the clash in the Oval Office of the White House take place, and why is the White House even humiliating him in front of the world? Some will say that Biden used Zelensky and now Trump has simply dumped him. But the enigma is not solved at all, it is only shifted: if Ukraine is simply and only a structural prosthesis of NATO, and the supreme leader of NATO (Trump) is making an agreement with Putin's Russia, why does Russia continue to bomb Ukraine? Why should Russia keep bombing a prosthesis of the USA even when the USA want to make an agreement with Russia?

Prisoners of their own absurdities, the campists fall back on the only escape route left to them: “The war continues because that is what the European governments want”. The identity of the “proxy” would therefore have changed. If the war was “provoked” mainly by the Americans so far, now it would be the EU that “provoked” it. Today, the EU would be pursuing “the third world war”. And yet the logic continues to pose challenging questions. A third world war of whom against whom? A world war of the European Union against the announced alliance between Trump and Putin, and perhaps China? The European Union at war against the rest of the world, with Zelensky as a single ally, and indeed through Zelensky as a battering ram for the world war? And with what objective and perspective?


“WAR” AND “PEACE”

The practical political implication of these fantasies is very simple: Donald Trump becomes the man of peace. A dramatic and grotesque character who embodies a global reactionary stance, who supports the German far right, who calls for the deportation of the Palestinians, who threatens to conquer Greenland, is in fact presented as the one who “finally” wants to end the war. He is represented exactly as such… by Trump’s propaganda. And he is represented exactly as such… by Putin’s converging propaganda.

In this toxic narrative, “War” and “Peace” are universal absolutes opposed to each other, beyond space and time. Real imperialisms, with their material interests and their desire for plundering, make way for a category of the spirit. Are you for Peace or for War? If you are for Peace, you are obliged to welcome Trump’s turn. You may not like the character, but peace comes first, doesn’t it? This is Marco Travaglio’s daily mantra from the columns of Il Fatto Quotidiano. A good part of the pacifist environment drinks his words. The ruling groups of the so-called “radical” left follow suit.

We don't. As old, stubborn Marxists, we are certainly against any imperialist war, but that does not mean we are in favor of any peace. The announced peace negotiation between the US and Russia is a negotiation between imperialist bandits for the colonial partition of Ukraine. The European imperialisms would only like to take part in the banquet, and are trying to show off new weapons for bargaining purposes. The bourgeois government of Zelensky, betrayed by the main “friendly” imperialism, is a prisoner of the trust it has placed in it, and of the interested maneuvers of the EU imperialisms.

The proxy war did not exist in Ukraine, but a proxy peace is being prepared. It will be made of territorial annexations, denial of any right to self-determination, plundering of Ukraine's natural resources, to the advantage of the two bargaining imperialisms.

There are no friendly imperialisms. Outside of a socialist perspective there is no way out of barbarism. Neither in war nor in peace. Neither in Ukraine, nor in Russia. Neither in Europe nor in America.