Above: Communist Party of Ukraine members rallying to defend a Soviet statue while Kiev’s fascist regime was beginning its crackdown on dissent
In May 2023, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation made a statement that articulated the needs of this era’s anti-fascist struggle. I believe the party’s words are worth revisiting, because they can help us advance this struggle amid the new stage it’s since entered into. Wrote the CPRF:
The key to success is the unity and cohesion of the peace-loving forces of the planet. A victorious resistance to world reaction can only succeed if it is worldwide. We are deeply convinced that our international solidarity can safeguard humankind against the Fascist threat and the slide into the abyss of a world war. We declare it firmly here in Byelorussia. On this sacred land the sense of inseparable link between the past, present and future is particularly acute. Dear friends, in the flaming days of the Second World War a great militant alliance was formed against Fascist barbarism – a union of communists and patriots, fighters against tyranny and democrats. It was created in spite of social and ideological differences, and different political and religious views. This is the bidding of the time. The new era of trials calls for unity of actions of all the people of good will. Let us then unite in the struggle against neo-Nazism, reaction and militarism! Long live he united front of progressive forces!
It’s only through such an effort, where the globe’s people unite against the U.S. empire like they united against Nazi Germany, that we’ll be able to build on the struggle’s recent gains. The defeat of Banderite Ukraine—which truly happened a long time ago—represents a major victory for the global proletariat. The Banderite ethnic cleansing plan, where Ukraine would have forcibly transferred Russian speakers out of the Donbass, has been foiled for good. It’s been foiled because Russia’s workers movement successfully pressured the Kremlin into launching Operation Z. This military effort is an extension of Russia’s Great Patriotic War, and it’s largely been motivated by the memory of Hitler’s atrocities against the Soviet people.
Russia’s second victory over Nazism has required an effort to revive the Soviet spirit; to fight for proletarian re-empowerment amid the loss of the socialist system. When Euromaidan happened in 2014, Russia’s political order was not yet at a stage where the government wanted to take sufficient action against the fascists. It would ultimately reach that stage, but the workers first had to intervene. The anti-fascist forces in Donbass, such as the region’s mine workers, first had to lead a separatist movement. Then Russia’s communists needed to carry out a pressure campaign, and make clear to Putin that assisting the Donbass people was in his best interests.
Fascist Kiev banned Ukraine’s Communist Party, but then the workers of the broader post-Soviet sphere mobilized to defeat the new Nazi menace. And thanks to this outside intervention, Ukraine’s revolutionary forces are on the path towards victory, at least in the long term. Ukraine continues to be controlled by the junta which has been behind the country’s Hitlerite policies, and when Zelensky is out, the fascist deep state will remain. Yet Ukraine’s dissidents and persecuted minorities have been brought closer towards getting liberated, because the state they live under has become severely weakened.
Their dictator has talked about turning Ukraine into a “big Israel,” where policing has been greatly intensified; but with how much chaos the fascist state must now deal with, such an extreme repressive plan could make the state collapse under its own weight. The junta is now tasked with governing a state whose military got crippled long ago, and that’s alienated its own population through aggressive conscription methods. The Ukrainian and U.S. deep states will now need to figure out a replacement for Zelensky, and the transition isn’t likely to be a clean one. I can’t speak to how the popular resistance inside Ukraine plans on taking advantage of these developments, as it’s been forced underground and must stay quiet; but this is a major opportunity to strike against the fascist state from within.
These events have also created an opening for the proletarian struggle worldwide. On a global scale, Russia’s victory has meant the further discrediting of liberalism, and therefore another vindication of communism. It’s exposed the weaknesses of the liberal order, and also its moral bankruptcy; the workers of the NATO countries see that their governments would rather invest in an unwinnable war than solve our living standards crisis. That’s the mindset which many proletarians in the imperialist countries have come to as a reaction to the Ukraine conflict. Most of them haven’t even needed to learn the true history of the war to know that NATO should be opposed; they’ve only had to notice the most surface-level facts. When the workers have won, we’ll be able to make the story of Banderism’s atrocities against Donbass into something that’s taught in the schools; but the working masses have already in large part rejected the Ukraine psyop.
So far, Turkey is the NATO member country that’s been experiencing the largest proletarian struggle since Operation Z began. The Ukraine war was what ruined Erdogan’s plans to stabilize the economy, so now Turkey’s workers have been set on a path of relentless revolt. The metal workers have been refusing to work in defiance of Erdogan’s order banning them from striking, and wildcat strikes are spreading across the country. These uprisings are an extension of the Turkish people’s formidable, militant backlash against their government’s assistance of the Gaza genocide; which gives Turkey’s class struggle a strongly anti-imperialist character, and thereby makes it effective.
Because Turkey’s workers are rebelling not just against their own bourgeoisie, but against the imperial hegemon as well, they’re in place to help thwart the hegemon’s next scheme. The Trump administration is trying to bring Russia, Iran, and China’s other strategic partners into the USA’s orbit, leaving the PRC isolated. Turkey is crucial to this plan, because if Russia becomes dependent on Turkey, Washington will become better able to make Russia capitulate. That’s how the U.S. has hoped Russia will react to Assad’s overthrow: by making concessions, and becoming friendly with the U.S.-Turkish aggressors. But if Turkey’s reactionary state is going to face an ever-greater threat from its own people, then it’s going to be in a weaker place both diplomatically and economically. How can a state gain the leverage to win other countries to its side when that state is in internal disarray?
In the NATO countries, the proletarian struggle’s immediate task is to sabotage the war machine by bringing such perils upon our capitalist states. The end goal is to overthrow these states, but until we’ve managed to do this, we must undermine Washington’s war goals. There is a real danger that the U.S. will make Russia capitulate; though Russia’s objective national interests are in staying aligned with China, there’s a faction of Russia’s ruling class that wants to sell the country out. Only through class struggle, both in Russia and in the NATO countries, can this prospect be averted.
The Russian workers have already made great progress, but the imperial enemy won’t be defeated until we in the U.S. carry out our own proletarian campaign. A campaign that weakens the war machine as much as possible prior to the revolution; while working towards the state’s overthrow at every step. BRICS cannot win this fight on its own, and multipolarity was never the end goal for communists. Multipolarity was only a necessary step in the path towards global workers victory. To build on Operation Z’s gains, we’ll have to take on a highly active role within the class war. Russia’s workers have done this, Turkey’s workers have done this, and now we must do this.
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