Socialist Action /January 2000
The War on Chechnya and US 'Humanitarianism'
By NAT WEINSTEIN
Every major political current and politician in Russia, from the most
rabid Great Russian chauvinists on the right to the Communist Party of the
Russian Federation on the so-called "left," supports the cruelly
repressive and utterly reactionary war on Chechnya. Although American-led
world imperialism has loudly condemned the Russian assault on Chechnya,
their words are belied by their deeds.
The Dec. 22, 1999, edition of The New York Times , for instance, reports
the settling of a dispute between Tyumen Oil, a Russian-controlled company
and BP Amoco, an British-American oil company. The dispute was over which
company should be the legal owner of Chernogorneft, a prized Siberian oil
field worth many billions of dollars. (To be sure, neither the people of
Russia nor of the Chernogorneft region were consulted.)
This story first burst into the mass media in boldfaced headlines less
than a week earlier, when Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright reportedly
had ordered the independent Export-Import Bank of the United States to cancel
a pending $500 million loan package to Russia.
Also being blocked by the Clinton administration-ostensibly because Russia's
Tyumen Oil company was accused of having "illegally"1 gained economic
control over Chernogorneft oil deposits-was a previously approved $640 million
loan to Russia by the International Monetary Fund.
Thus, because the blocking of the two loans coincided with American threats
over Chechnya, it had the intended effect of appearing to be the first blows
struck to put economic force behind Clinton's condemnation of Russia's chauvinist
assault on Chechnya. However, when the above-cited agreement between Russia
and the United States hit the headlines, the credibility of the U.S. "condemnation"
of the Russian assault on Chechnya went up in smoke.
Moreover, since the deal gives the British-American oil company the very
valuable Chernogorneft oil field, it raises the question: What did Russia's
elite get in exchange?
Some light is shed on the Chernogorneft deal when it is known that Chechnya
is a part of the oil-rich Caspian Sea region, that has for some time been
the scene of a many-sided struggle for control of its oil deposits and pipe-line
routes. Among the powers scrambling for control are most of the major imperialist
countries and Russia.
Also scrambling for a piece of the action are second-rate powers like
Turkey and Iran and still other, even weaker, contending nations bordering
on the Caspian Sea. Consequently, Russia's self-enriching bureaucrats and
capitalists, like their soul brothers among the world's imperialists, seem
hell-bent on a course toward armed conflict, and thus, the exchange of blood
for oil.
This part of the background to the Russian assault on Chechnya indicates
that the real aims of imperialism have little to do with defending the rights
of the Chechen people. In a word, Russia's assault on Chechnya served American
imperialism as just another chip in the bargaining over Caspian oil and
other riches of the region.
Accordingly, the trade-off appears to be that Russia got the okay from
imperialism to go after what it wanted in Chechnya and imperialism got Russia's
okay to try and take what it wanted, from both the Chernogorneft and Caspian
oil deposits.
This conclusion was largely confirmed in subsequent reports in The New
York Times. The lead story, featured on the front page of its Dec. 24 edition,
for instance, reported on a meeting between U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
Strobe Talbott and the Russian defense minister, Igor D. Sergeyev. Talbott
reportedly let it all hang out by expressing "support" for Russia's
goal of "eliminating Chechen extremism and terrorism." (These
are code words use in demonizing a people to justify their oppression.)
Talbott's criticism was thereby reduced to the mild "rebuke"
that the "methods [Russia used to eliminate 'terrorism'] should respond
to international law." In other words: it's okay for Russia to crush
those it labels "terrorists"-but only if it is approved by the
United Nations or one of the other international agencies under the thumb
of world imperialism!
What imperialism really wants
Another report in The Times appeared in its Dec. 29 edition titled, "U.S.
Backs Away from Bid to Cut Off Aid to Russia." It serves as further
confirmation of Clinton's spurious "condemnation" of the Russian
assault on Chechnya. The report begins with this straightforward confirmation
of the U.S. capitalist government's cynical hypocrisy:
"The United States will not seek to block economic aid to Russia
as punishment for that country's widely condemned campaign against separatist
rebels in Chechnya, a Clinton administration official said today."
The Times report, whether intentionally or not, makes it crystal clear
that American policy is not what it's cracked up to be. For one, it is further
proof that Clinton's "humanitarian" support for Chechnya's right
to self-determination is as phony as was the imperialist claim starting
500 years ago that its colonization of Africa, Asia, and the Americas was
designed to "bring Christian morality and enlightenment to the benighted
pagan world."
And as we shall see, it fits in with imperialism's real foreign policy
aims in this region of the world; that is, to pressure the procapitalist
Russian government to accelerate the pace of privatization of its nationalized
economy.
This is because imperialism fears that if privatization remains stalled,
there will be too little incentive for capitalists, domestic and foreign,
to invest in Russia-and the economy will continue to wither away.
But privatization in Russia and in the other degenerating workers states
can only be carried out by the procapitalist Stalinist bureaucracy and its
capitalist offshoots. This is an indispensable prerequisite before imperialist
financial and industrial corporations-and the Americans, first and foremost-can
hope to take over and develop the economies of these countries as a source
of new trillions of dollars in superprofits.
(Whether or not their aspirations are realizeable, however, is quite
another question.)
The Times report, in any case, describes the "joy" expressed
by an unnamed "senior Russian economic envoy" at the "good
news" that the World Bank had announced that the $640 million loan
would be released on the condition that Russia meets its obligations under
the agreed-on terms of the loan.
A major condition for the loan is that the money be used only to "cushion
the impact of mass layoffs in the coal industry." The fact that Russia
had already agreed to close 116 inefficient mines as another of the conditions
to be met before receiving the $640 million in "aid," merely shows
that U.S.-Russian differences over Chechnya were incidental to their maneuvering
for strategic advantage in their joint project-the restoration of capitalism
in Russia.
This points to one of the real reasons behind the conflict between imperialism
and their collaborators in the degenerating workers states; that what imperialism
wants is for the ruling elite in these countries to move faster than they
are willing or able to go toward capitalist restoration.
But those in charge of these countries have good reason to fear that
should they move too fast toward shutting down state-owned industry, it
would throw more millions of workers out of their jobs and contribute to
the already deepening radicalization of the working class. Since the Russian
elite is on the front lines of this effort, they prefer to tread much more
slowly and carefully than does imperialism, who stand at a safer distance
away.
Those are the real reasons for the conflict between the indigenous ruling
elites in the degenerating workers states and the world's imperialists.
But their conflict notwithstanding, the partners in crime need each other,
at least until worker resistance has been crushed.
Moreover, the struggle for control over Chernogorneft exemplifies another
source of conflict between the indigenous Russian ruling groups and imperialism.
And that refers to their competition over who will end up with the lion's
share of the plunder when the dust settles-imperialism or their indigenous
junior partners-in-crime?
But in the meantime, imperialism desperately needs Russian bureaucrats
and capitalists to lead the assault on Russian workers-Eastern Europe's
most powerful working class. This is essentially because it would be impossible
for an outside force-no matter how powerful-to be the direct agency of capitalist
restoration. That's why they are dependent on an indigenous political and
military force to push it as far as it can go.
And then, if mass resistance threatens to stop and reverse the counter-revolutionary
process, imperialism has the option of sending "peacekeepers"
in to crush it. (An option they are sure to think through with much trepidation
over the consequences of failure!)
A look back at World War II provides a graphic illustration of the problems
imperialism would face if they had to force a transition to capitalism from
the outside and without an indigenous force spearheading a joint attempt
to turn the clock of history back in Russia as well as in the other post-capitalist
countries in Eastern Europe and Asia.
In June 1941, the German imperialists tried a direct military overthrow
of the conquests of the Russian Socialist Revolution during their World
War II invasion of the Soviet Union. The Nazi army even went so far as to
promise the Ukrainian people the right to self-determination in order to
gain a base of support among the Soviet population. The Nazi promise of
freedom from Stalinist chauvinist oppression led many Ukrainians to welcome
the German invaders as liberators.
However, when the Germans proceeded to confiscate the nationalized factories
and farms of Ukrainian workers and farmers, and kidnapped its young men
to serve as slave labor in German factories, Ukrainians realized their mistake
and rose up in revolt against the German armies of occupation.
Ultimately, the Ukrainian struggle-which the Nazis had deepened into
a repression of Ukrainians both as a class as well as a nation-led to the
latter's armed resistance making an important contribution to the defense
of the Soviet Union and to the defeat of German imperialism in World War
II.
We can be sure that the lessons of that disaster for Germany have not
been lost on today's imperialists. Hence, imperialism today has little choice
but to depend on their Russian collaborators to spearhead the capitalist
assault on the revolutionary conquests of the Russian working class.
Nationalism of oppressor begets nationalism of oppressed
It's an old story by now that the main strategy of any ruling class or
caste, which in class society is always a small minority of the population,
must be that of "divide and conquer." Privileged rulers must seek
out and incite and foster every imaginable difference among their victims
so as to play one sector against the other.
Such antagonisms rarely arise without the help of those who seek to profit
from sectoral strife. Racial, religious, cultural, language, and national
differences are in no way an intrinsic source of antagonisms between human
beings.
But when living standards are depressed-however it is caused-and the
struggle for existence intensifies, the oppressors seize on the crisis of
existence to divert the anguish of the suffering masses from themselves
to one or more of the scapegoated sectors of the population.
Nationalism, as a stage of human social development, for instance, had
historically served to achieve a larger measure of human solidarity than
previously possible. It brought tribes together into nations, which brought
far larger numbers of human beings together for social and economic cooperation.
All other things being equal, it is a widely accepted principle that
two or more people working together can accomplish very much more than each
on their own. And, according to this principle, the more people working
together, the greater the potential for increasing the productivity of the
clan, tribe, or nation.
And so it is the case when capitalism spreads its tentacles across the
surface of the planet, bringing ever-larger numbers of human beings into
its global network. Thus, capitalist globalization increases the productive
potential of the human race in direct proportion to the potentially greater
number of people involved in the production of the things that satisfy human
needs and wants.
But, as is well known, only imperialism benefits from the increased wealth
produced by those who do the work, while the general quality of life for
the great majority has tended to steadily decline. Only a privileged few
among the colonial and neocolonial nations of the world, who loyally serve
the interests of imperialism, are permitted a small share of the wealth
expropriated from the masses.
At the same time, as capitalism expands its influence to every corner
of the planet, and weaves its subject nations into a global economic network,
the right of its peoples to determine their own affairs and control their
lives tends to be increasingly abrogated. And, whether intended or not,
any resistance to social, economic, and political dictatorship by imperialism
is repressed by any means and by whatever force it deems necessary.
Thus the nationalism of the oppressor calls into existence its own opposite-the
nationalism of the oppressed.
Socialists are not advocates of nationalism in the world as it is today.
The national state was a higher form of social organization by virtue of
the fact that it was the only way possible, at a given point in history,
to bring together in one social and economic organism the largest possible
number of human beings cooperating in any given region of the planet.
But that time is long past. Today it is an instrument in the hands of
exploiters and oppressors for dividing those it exploits and oppresses.
Capitalism transforms these narrower social relationships into their opposites;
into competing fractions of the population in a struggle by each against
all.
In the last century alone, we have seen countless small and larger wars
and two world wars, all of which-with the exception of wars of the oppressed
against the oppressors- have been between competing nations, each dominated
by its own indigenous capitalist class. And the terrible tragedy is that
the oppressed on both sides of these reactionary wars do most of the killing
and dying, and gain little or nothing for their pains.
At the same time, however, revolutionary socialists, like the supporters
of this newspaper, see the nationalism of the oppressed as irreconcilably
opposed to the nationalism of the oppressor, and thus we take sides with
the oppressed against the oppressor. In our view, the struggle of the oppressed
nationality for political freedom is organically connected to the struggle
of the international working class for social and economic freedom from
capitalist exploitation.
Thus, we see the nationalism of the oppressed as an essential but transitory
part of the struggle against capitalist superexploitation and oppression
and as, objectively, a step toward freedom. But so long as capitalism still
holds sway, real freedom is not possible, since the capitalists of the oppressed
nationality have interests counterposed to the rest of society. Even capitalists
who are members of an oppressed nationality also are the exploiters and
oppressors of their own toilers.
However, that's not a reason for the oppressed to stop fighting against
national oppression and for the right to determine their own affairs. Every
partial victory in the grander struggle against all forms of class, national,
and other forms of social and economic injustice is a component part of
the solution. That is, each small victory by the oppressed against the oppressor
shows that the ruling classes and castes are far from omnipotent and can
be defeated.
Consequently, it is very important to understand that solutions of such
things as nationalist oppression is part of the solution, but is not a solution
in and of itself.
But its main importance is that it points to the fact that small victories
builds the collective consciousness of the oppressed. It serves to build
the confidence of the oppressed masses that they indeed have the power to
defeat their oppressors. Thus, the calculated use of small tactical victories
to build toward the larger strategic victory is an essential part of a winning
strategy in the class struggle.
Such a pattern of victories, planned, organized, and led by a conscious
working-class leadership can lead the masses to the ultimate goal of overthrowing
all their oppressors and liberating humanity from the main and all encompassing
source of their misery-world capitalist imperialism.
After all, we should not lose sight of why we revolutionary socialists
are champions of proletarian internationalism. It's because the working
class has been formed by history to be the only force capable of leading
all humanity in a struggle for the liberation of the entire human race.
There are only two alternatives before the human race. One is the overthrow
of capitalism and the construction of a world socialist society based on
the abolition of all manifestations of social, economic, and political injustice.
The only other alternative has already gone a considerable distance toward
the absolute destruction of human solidarity-and in the end, nuclear annihilation
of our species and perhaps of all life on the planet Earth.
1 The alleged "illegal" act was a Russian court
decision regarding who owned Chernogorneft that may well have been decided
in Tyumen Oil's favor by buying off the judge. But that kind of underhandedness
is the norm in the United States and every other capitalist country and,
in fact, virtually every politician in capitalist countries is legally for
sale and will do the bidding of those who can pay the most.
Socialist Action /January 2000 |