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...

Originally posted by bell_mess at Чисто теоретически...