It’s now been more than two and a half years since NATO and Russia invaded Ukraine, bringing war back to Europe. The consequences have been devastating for the Ukrainian proletariat, but also for the Russian one. The economic effects are spreading to Europe, especially to the countries most economically linked to Russia.

The Ukrainian side attributes the outbreak and development of the war to Russian expansionist policy. But the Ukrainian bourgeoisie is not fighting for freedom and national independence, as its propaganda claims. The Ukrainian proletariat is sent to the front to defend the economic and political interests of Western capital, while the Ukrainian bourgeoisie has sold itself to the capitalists of America and Europe. And the Ukrainian proletariat, after having shed its blood in the war, will have to repay the debts accumulated by its own bourgeoisie, today to buy weapons, in the coming decades for “reconstruction”.

The war had been brewing for some time, necessary to vent imperialist tensions, which rise hand in hand with the recurring economic crises. The clash between NATO and Russia had been prepared by NATO since 2014. A proxy war, fought by sending the Ukrainian proletarians to the slaughter. The United States’ intention was not only to weaken Russia, but also Germany, an ally but a fearsome competitor on the international markets. Russia’s wealth of raw materials has allowed Berlin to develop its industrial potential in recent decades, making Germany one of the world’s leading exporting countries. Germany, the leader of a united Europe, is an imperialist competitor for the USA, together with China. The sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines was a significant development of the USA’s desire to break the link between Germany and Russia.

The impact that the war is having on Russia is different. The arms industry is working at full capacity; manufacturing, food production and the agricultural sector have been paradoxically protected by Western sanctions. The export of fossil fuels has shifted towards Asian markets and Turkey and the export of natural gas to European continues. This war is neither progressive nor truly defensive. It is an imperialist war on two fronts: the Russian front and that of its allies, and the Ukrainian front and that of its allies. It is a war against the international proletariat, a war that prepares the way for a more general clash between the major imperialist powers.

The German government, which appears to be subjugated to the impositions from across the ocean, is however expanding its already important military industry, a sector that doesn’t fear crises of overproduction and that is destined to grow enormously in the next few years, even if currently it isn’t sufficient to bring the country out of the economic crisis. On the other hand, the attempt to exclude Europe from Russian gas has not been entirely successful, given that it still accounts for about 15% of the Old Continent’s needs, and outside of Europe, Turkey is positioned as a hub for Moscow’s liquefied natural gas.

The United States, which still has 36,000 heavily armed soldiers in Germany, is still the master of the world. But their hegemony is progressively weakening. Their main enemy is China, which can’t help but expand its sphere of influence. But the USA is now railing against its European allies and Russia, which represents a lesser form of imperialism, mainly economic, but risks pushing it into the arms of China. Beijing is now the world’s largest commercial power and has a production apparatus second only to that of the United States. However, it has come to present itself as a global power when the world was already heavily occupied by other imperialist states, primarily the United States. China is therefore in a position of weakness from a strategic military point of view at this historical juncture. Its diplomatic action is therefore not aggressive, calling for the opening of the world market, dialogue and collaboration between states – “multilateralism” – and the avoidance of conflicts.

This is the same policy followed by Washington in the 1920s, when Great Britain was still the master of the seas with its fleets of gunboats. The United States, with the strength of its young industrial apparatus, was waiting to become dominant on the world market.It is the same logic of capitalist profit that, instead of strengthening it, has put the United States war industry in crisis. Tomorrow it will happen with China as well.

On the Ukrainian Front

The Russian offensive in the Donbass region continues. Having mobilized new troops in recent months, it now has a larger and better armed army than the Ukrainian one: the Ukrainians have barely 250,000 soldiers, the Russians more than double that number. The Ukrainian soldiers paint a bleak picture of the situation. The difficulties in replacing losses at the front are becoming increasingly evident. Industry is on its knees, having lost 90% of its production capacity due to Russian bombing, especially of power stations. Recalling soldiers from the rear to the front, and hunting down those who fled abroad and those who are reluctant to return have also been unsuccessful.Furthermore, “The constant decline in the quality of the Ukrainian military, also due to reduced training times, is leading to ever higher losses, also favored by the fact that the Russians are able to fire six or seven times more shots” (Analisi Difesa, June 8).

Recent news from the American CNN talks about a strong demoralization in the Ukrainian armed forces and reports that desertions are growing at a dizzying pace. “In the first four months of 2024, military prosecutors have opened proceedings against nearly 19,000 soldiers who abandoned their positions or deserted. This is probably an incomplete figure because many officers do not report desertions and absences in the hope that the soldiers will return voluntarily without incurring punishment. This is so common that Ukraine has decriminalized desertion and absences if committed for the first time. “The new soldiers, seeing how difficult the situation is, struggling with the numerous enemy drones, artillery and mortars, assigned to a position, if they survive they never go back. They refuse to go to fight, or find a way to leave the Army”.

The lack of a class-based party, the absence of an organized labor movement, the prevailing counter-revolution, and rampant individualism, prevent this refusal to fight from taking on a collective aspect, from transforming itself into a movement against the imperialist war that, starting from the trenches, involves the proletariat of the Ukrainian cities, taking on classist and anti-capitalist connotations. But it certainly represents a first step in this direction.

There are also difficulties on the Russian side in this respect, albeit to a lesser extent since Russia has more than twice the population of Ukraine. “The New York Times reported that in May, Moscow’s forces lost an average of more than a thousand soldiers every day, including both dead and wounded” (Analisi Difesa, July 2). On September 16th a decree increased the number of men in the Armed Forces to 1.5 million, up from the previous 1.32 million. Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, Russia has enlisted over 600,000 contract soldiers and, according to Ukrainian and Western sources, continues to recruit 30,000 a month despite the fact that the Russian labor market is at full employment and offers increasing salaries.

The Western Military Industry

The war in Ukraine is highlighting the increasingly destructive nature of modern warfare. Destroy as much as possible is the mantra imposed on generals, with bombs, missiles and drones of ever-increasing destructive power. It seems that the Ukrainian Armed Forces need more than 200,000 bullets a month, which cost an average of $4,000 each. The Russians will certainly use even more, but it seems they cost $1,000 each! A real bargain for Atlantic capital! But the western military industry is currently unable to meet the quantities required. “The European Union has had to postpone until the end of 2024 the delivery of one million artillery shells promised to be supplied within a year to Kiev in March 2023. Production limits are also linked to the shortage of raw materials, with a lack of nitric acid and nitrocellulose. The bellicose proclamations of European political leaders do not seem to correspond to any concrete ability to support them».

Western countries are committed to increasing their arms production capacity, and also to reviewing their industrial policy choices in this field, which will have to focus more on quantity than on quality. But in order to make investments, the military industry wants guarantees that the war will continue, so as not to risk that an unwanted peace will lead to warehouses being filled. The proletariat, both in Ukraine and Russia, massacred in recent years due to the warmongering policies of their governments, will learn the right lessons and will turn against the criminal masterminds; the bourgeois regimes and their States. The only real hope for lasting peace is the transformation of war between states into war between classes for the overthrow of the capitalist regime and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which opens the way to communism.