"War of civilizations" in Baltic Rim Economies review (University of Turku, Finland):

Professor from Estonia's great article about Russian aggression:
sites.utu.fi/bre/war-of-civilizations/

Senior Lecturer
TalTech Law School
Tallinn, Estonia

 

This article was submitted for publication in the middle of March. I do not know what the current situation on the fronts of the Russo-Ukrainian war is, but I am absolutely sure – Ukraine will never surrender, and Russia will be defeated.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine is not merely a local high-intensity armed conflict. This is not Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria. A full-scale invasion of independent Ukraine, with the use of its full arsenal, alongside Russia’s demonstrable grave breaches of all possible rules and customs of war, is in fact an attack on the whole of Europe.

The fact that Russian missiles and bombs are not hitting Suomi just yet, should not mislead you. Hybrid warfare is always followed by a kinetic phase. The hybrid war reached its climax in the Euro-Atlantic world. The choice that Europeans are facing is very simple – it is either to fall victim or resist.

How does this affect Finland, a non-NATO nation? The Ukrainian example shows that no informal status, like the one laid down in the Budapest Memorandum, can in practice protect a country from a Russian attack.

Therefore, what is the ominous prospect for the Finns? Russia is rapidly turning into North Korea. That is, it will soon close its markets. In particular, Russian raw materials will no longer be supplied to Finland.

The rapid deterioration of Russia’s economy will lead to an outflow of economic refugees to neighbouring countries, where they could hypothetically be accepted. We all know what a Russian tourist is. Now, there will be economic refugees with their infamous customs and claims. The need for the de-Putinization of Russian society, similar to the denazification of Germany after WWII, is imperative, as the brainwashed Russian population is a dangerous mixture of nazism, fascism, communism, religious obscurantism and imperial ambition.

Russia’s seizure of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and attacks on other nuclear facilities, including missile attacks on nuclear reactors, make the prospect of a nuclear fallout look terrifyingly realistic. It should also be remembered that in Ukraine, the winds traditionally lead the airflows from the southwest in the northerly direction. We will thus be forced to forget about the world’s long-term fight for a clean environment as it is just hot air for Russia.

Now that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has finally revealed a deep systemic crisis in international relations in the political, economic, and social spheres, it has called into question the existing outlines of global security. A similar situation was observed in regard to the League of Nations before WWII. Today, however, the devastating effects of Russia’s war will hit all nations, at all levels. Everyone will be affected by this shock wave, and now it is only a matter of time.

Russia’s infamous objective is to re-establish the USSR. The military tools of this re-establishment are aimed at not only seizing territory, but also at blackmailing the West. Russia has long considered European democracies its geopolitical periphery. To this end, Moscow has been for years corrupting European politicians and planting its agents of influence. And now it has resorted to an act of armed aggression, which it is prepared to pursue until it gains the required concessions.

The offensive potential of the Russian army is currently being exhausted. Serious tactical blunders and a lack of human and material military resources were exposed during the initial period of hostilities. Russia is now demonstrating preparations for a protracted, positional war of attrition. At the same time, the Kremlin simply is not ready for this – either mentally or physically.

Therefore, scorched earth tactics are being applied, aimed at the total destruction of civil infrastructure and residential areas. Artillery shelling and air strikes have led to massive civilian casualties, accompanied by ever increasing cases of extrajudicial executions of unarmed civilians out in the streets. This, in turn, increases the already massive outflow of internally displaced persons to the western regions of Ukraine and refugees – to the EU. NATO is reluctant to introduce a no-fly zone and confront Russia, even if Russia does not have either the economic, or military capacity to confront NATO. Innocent Ukrainian civilians, women, and children die from Russian bombs, and it is a growing source of shame for the Western allies.

Russia sees no other solution to a problem, than the use of force. Europe will soon face the largest influx of refugees since World War II and an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.

The scale of this war will only continue to grow. This will inevitably hinder the spring sowing campaigns of Ukrainian farmers. Russian farmers will also be affected. Food and feed grain shortages will soon hit global markets. Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of China, could face a major food crisis.

The war that Russia is waging in Ukraine is a war of civilizations. It is a frontier between the past and the future. The path the world will have to walk now depends on all of us.

Give Peace a chance: Marxism VS Imperialism in XXI cc

As the Marxist movements worldwide has shown solidarity with Ukraine and condemned Imperialism of Russia, may it be regarded as final break-up with Stalinism, as the right-wing critics can not deny now that it was not Communist International causing wars but rather Russian and other remaining empires do?

Recent collapse of Soviet (concentration) Camp, which used to include RSFSR, Ukraine etc. as parts of ex-Russian empire, SFRU (Yugoslavia), FDRE (Abyssinian empire) and a few other multinational countries has been claimed by right-wingers to bring the end to wars, and even "History" itself, due to an unsubstantiated theory by so called "liberals" of neo-con camp that it is the "class struggle" concept of left ideology causing large scale military conflicts. Though a materialist thinker would reject that immediately, as "idealist" insinuation, basically looking for a non-existent force supposedly influencing real world events, this year's largest war in Europe for almost a century, and other horrible bloodshed of past years might have an opposite explanation, which can be examined as it belongs to mundane observable reality. I'd say it needs to be studied scientifically, in a non-ideological positivist way due to its importance and potential to save the life on entire planet. So why can't the recent war and genocide outbreaks be attributed to Imperialism as predicted by Marxist philosophy, and in each of above mentioned cases, can it be attributed to particular nationalities (in Marxist sense)?

The belief into an "invisible hand" ruling economies is after all an artificial construct, originating due to its convenience for a model, as much as the Darwin's concept of Evolution, which never contradicted his own religious belief. Thus, if the Marxist ideology was removed as a factor influencing violence level in most of the countries of Soviet Camp, we should expect peace in the states embracing the Democracy and Free market relations on one hand, and more violence in the remaining Communist regimes, from Cuba to China? Reality is quite the opposite: despite political oppression of former countries, and obvious nationalist militarism of a few regimes, like North Korean, the only "active" civil war I can name at the moment is the rebellion against Myanmese Communist Junta, and latter's oppression of Rohingyas. There is also Houthi war against the re-united Yemen, however neither of sides is Marxist AFAIK. Let's set aside communist terrorism which may lay along the ethnic lines in e.g. India, as these are not "national states" in Marxist understanding, at least yet. To not get carried away with plethora of Latin American conflicts, I'll mention violent protests against Venezuelan leftist dictatorship as worthy of further study.

On the contrary, I have listed at the beginning 3 former Empires (Russian, Abyssinian and Yugoslav tsardom) as non-colonial examples, but we can expand the sample with Yemen, Somalia, Armenia, Tajikistan* (former Ottoman Empire and communist states, *= also part of R.Empire and USSR), Afghanistan (excluded for too complex a history over past century), and ex-colonies of Indochina, where Myanmar (former Burman empire) is.

I am excluding also peaceful ex-communist countries like e.g. Mongolia.

What is common with all the above-listed? They all have enjoyed absence of cross-boundary conflicts under Communist rule, but went to war once it was replaced with free-market. Some of these remain dictatorships, while Ethiopia has embraced Democratic Socialism, and former along with Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgizstan have history of mass protests. Ethiopia had a war with Somalia, but it has started when latter was under Soviet influence but it turned out less leftist than former under DERG junta, so technically it was USSR fighting on both sides victoriously (once Cuban and Soviet troops have left the DERG regime has collapsed).

I am not aiming to discuss internal violence, so e.g. Cambodia under Paul Pot is out of scope, except for him being a proxy to China-Vietnam war. This war was in its turn a proxy war of China with the USSR with correspondingly Cambodia and Vietnam being puppets to these Communist super-powers, reluctant at the moment to destroy each other completely because of commonly perceived competition with NATO. China had numerous border conflicts directly with the USSR, Vietnam and India with numerous casualties and thus can be a first example of violent leftist state. One obvious difference of China from the rest of former and present communist countries is its conscious acceptance of private property and free market elements, though recently there seems to be a return to command economy. China is also nationalist, along with Ethiopia, another Trotskist regime which has embraced market reforms in 2020.

FDRE is also an example of changing modes of economic freedom: since 1974 - "military communism" with collectivization and famine, like in Mao's China, then since 1991 - limited private property "Leninist" or Chinese style, and capitalist since 2020. Their 5-year planned super-industrial project "Millenium Damb" is still filling with water to reach the output levels planned many pyatiletkas ago.

Now let's consider post-soviet Ukraine, which has embraced Democracy like Ethiopia, but was developing capitalism faster than the latter mostly under influence of "Liberal" Russian Federation. 

RF is an opposite of all a.m. post communist states, which has swiftly moved to ruin the USSR by declaring independence right after Ukraine, Armenia, Tajikistan and rest of its members (except 3 Baltic republics) have voted to keep it. Russia was the only decisively pro market and even "democrat" state to emerge out of collapse of the USSR, with even Baltic states demonstrating varying speed and depth of reforms, 

And it was exactly Russia causing the first post-Soviet war in Transnistria. While Moldova was trying to strike a peace deal with pro-Russian rebels and Ukraine was supporting peaceful resolution, Russia has sent troops there. In 1995 Russia has attacked its own autonomous republic of Chechnya and violently crushed a communist rebellion in Moscow. While all of this was happening, Ukraine had Socialist and Communist parties not just in Parliaments of all levels, but as a key player of 2004 revolution. Socialist's leader O. Moroz has become a Parliament speaker (5+ years served in multiple cadences), and fell out of ruling coalition only once Communist party ban was lifted and most members have moved there by 2011. Communist party was a member of ruling coalition in Ukraine since 2006 until 2014 when Russia has attacked.

However, in Russia Communists were always in opposition, and once both countries have built business empires of super rich titled "Oligarkhs" an Imperialist war ensued, just as predicted by Marx.

One might object, that these two countries might have been insufficiently Democratic thus non-pacifist?

The saddest example (not by number of victims, but of quickest slide into violence) is Ethiopia. In 1994 after long negotiations Ethiopian revolution was completed by adoption of  Democratic Constitution, which resulted also in splitting an extreme** Communist dictatorship in Eritrea. In 1998 Eritrea attacked its neighbor though having 10 times less population and economy, but Ethiopia has refused to occupy it, and sought the UN mediation instead. (** I have consciously omitted Eritrea from the list of former Empires, as it is more similar to post-colonial North Korea or Cambodia). In 2020 the Socialists was only freely elected party in Ethiopian parliament (2 opposition members were still elected in 2015), and there was approximately 15th year of minor local riots and unrest (like e.g. in India), but the new Prime minister has decided to drop Socialism and privatise largest state enterprises, like EthioTelecom etc. In Ukraine such process has taken about 10 years since independence to reach 50% private share with preservation of the most of social benefits from Soviet times. By the end of 2021 Ethiopian government started genocide of 2/~100 of its minor nations (1 stateless), refused statehood to one more and a civil war has erupted with multiple more combatants, including the 2nd most populous Oromo state demanding independence...