In his speech „War and Revolution“, which he gave in May 1917, that is, during World War I, Lenin said “that the most important thing that is usually overlooked… is the question of the class character of the war: what caused that war, what classes are waging it, and what historical and historico-economic conditions gave rise to it.” (Lenin, volume 24, p. 398).

Today, more than 100 years after the October Revolution, wars are again raging in the world, and the danger of a new world war looms. Today it is even harder than at that time to explain the true class character of the situation to the workers, because the instruments of bourgeois propaganda with the help of the internet and mass media have reached a new level. This, however, remains an important task.

In the speech, he continues: „From the point of view of Marxism, that is, of modern scientific socialism, the main issue … is this: what is the war being waged for, and what classes staged and directed it. We Marxists do not belong to that category of people who are unqualified opponents of all war.“ (ibid.) There is no doubt, that all wars currently taking place, reflect the interests of the ruling class, the bourgeoisie. Thus, the war in Ukraine, for example, clearly has this inter-imperialist characteristic, and threatens, at a certain point, to escalate to a world war. A further example is the invasion by Israel into the Palestinian territories, in which the imperialist interests of Israel, the West and the new imperialist states of the Middle East (Turkey, Iran, Saudi-Arabia, Egypt) become visible. And in all these cases it is the workers foremost – the workers of Ukraine, Russia, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, etc. – who carry the burden of the immediate warfare, of death, distress, loss of their homes, of relatives and friends.

Lenin further says: “We are constantly witnessing attempts … to read into the present war an historical meaning which it does not possess. ” (ibid, p. 401) This is also the case today: Thus, Putin’s propaganda portrays the barbaric invasion of Ukraine as the “restoration of historical justice”, and even goes so far as to claim that Ukraine was artificially created, namely through the actions of: Lenin! During the night in which the intervention began, the dictator of the Russian Federation V. Putin stated publicly that one of the goals of the intervention was a “true de-communization” of Ukraine, that is, its destruction as a country. What type of “justice” was he talking about? No, these are greedy plans of invasion; the Kremlin imperialists do not care about the Ukrainian people – nor for the Russian people – they are only concerned with egotistical victories, interested only in the control over the resources of Ukraine. Western imperialism, too, has similar motives; it wants to control Ukraine, Russia and simply as many parts of the world as possible.

Therefore it is very important to understand that there is not the one or the other “right side” in the “Ukraine war”; that the workers are in the right, the proletariat of Ukraine, Russia and other countries are in the right, the proletariat is in the right which is carrying all the burden of this war in the name of the interests of the ruling classes. Betrayed by the bourgeois propaganda of their governments, the workers of the opposing sides go to war against each other and sacrifice themselves for the interests of the bourgeoisie. This cannot be “just”, on neither side. True, when Russian imperialism suffers a defeat, the objective situation of the Ukrainian proletariat will be improved, the immediate destruction of peaceful cities and the murder of its inhabitants will end. But the bourgeois regime dependent on the interests of the West will stay, and that can soon lead to new wars – for example on the territory of Russia or in other regions of the world, where the West is in need of “brave Ukrainian soldiers”.

With reference to Putin’s cynical imperialism, other words from Lenin from the same speech are quite appropriate: a “… group of capitalists ... who came to the capitalist banqueting table when all the seats were occupied, but who introduced into the struggle new methods ...” (ibid, p. 403). In reality, the bourgeois, degenerate actors from the ranks of the Soviet Party and State nomenclature from the USSR, in which the restoration of capitalism had already begun long ago, have, with enormous greed and will to act, thrown themselves into reconquering the spheres of influence of the former Soviet Union. This began with the brutal colonial wars in Chechnya and the rest of the Caucasus and found its logical continuation in Putin’s occupation of Crimea and the Donbass, as well as the direct invasion of Ukraine. There is nothing “clever” or “progressive” about Putin’s regime; they are ordinary greedy and cynical capitalists.

To conclude, we say: The situation in Ukraine is complicated and bloody, and it is not clear at all, when and how the war will end. But it is definitely important to preserve the clarity of the class standpoint; because only in this way it’s possible to correctly understand the true nature of the events and their possible development. It is necessary to know and understand the reality without sliding towards the lies and illusions of propaganda in the one or the other direction. The words of Lenin, his clear and precise analysis, are therefore still extremely up to date.

Proletarian greetings, KSRD