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We recently reviewed the stand-off in the borders around Ukraine between the USA-NATO, European Union, Ukraine and Russia. [1] However we note disturbing signs of an opportunist support for Russia from some sections of the Marxist left. They prompt these theses to spur potential debates at this critical time – within Marxist circles.
- In today’s world, any war is unlikely to be a localized affair. It inevitably becomes part of the international rivalry between the imperialist nations. As these become wars for power and markets – whatever was the initial spur – they become unjust wars between (at least) two sides. In such unjust wars, Lenin points out that:
“It is the duty of the socialists of every country to wage an unrelenting struggle against the chauvinism and patriotism of their own country (and not only of the enemy)”. [2]
It follows that while the socialists of every ‘home’ country must to the maximum, struggle against jingoistic war-fury of their own country, they must also expose the chauvinism of the ‘enemy’. Despite this injunction, at the present time as trumpets blare in Europe and Ukraine, many Marxists and socialists in the Western imperialist heart-lands one-sidedly emphasise the belligerence of only their own ‘home’ countries. For example in the USA, the UK or Germany. Many are reluctant to state the Putin government has had any role in this current escalated stand-off.
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