> 
> On Tue, Jan 14, 2025 at 07:09 PM, Mark Baugher wrote:
> My position is that Ukrainians have the right to self-determination in
> defending their national sovereignty from an invasion that seeks to end
> it. And this has nothing to do with the applicability of permanent
> revolution (Trotsky'st not Marx's).
> 
> 

Or maybe, since you don't provide any analysis, your  claim is mistaken. Now 
it's the easiest thing to claim Ukraine is engaged in a battle for 
self-determination. but saying so doesn't make it so, no more than "poor little 
Belgium"  was engaged in a battle for self-determination against Germany during 
the world wars....or (my favorite) Kuwait was engaged in a battle for 
"self-determination" against Iraq in 1991.

I think the Iraq-Kuwait "model" is more applicable to the Ukraine-Russia 
conflict than the (mis) application of anti-colonial categories, and I base 
that conclusion  on the virtual identity of the modes of production, the class 
relations of the opponents.

So what is the social base for your designation of a battle for 
self-determination?  The fact that Russia is bigger? Russia invaded?

You advance this "right" as an abstraction, without any social content.  So 
when the current ruling class advocates as "self-determination" its intention 
to join the EU and NATO are they exercising their "right" as a ruling class?

Maybe, based on some understanding of the demands of accumulation, the cause of 
the war is the similarity -- the equality in modes of production, and this is 
one more example where substituting abstract rights for concrete analysis 
actually works to preserve the causes of the war, empower the destruction of 
the prospects for an independent class-based opposition to the ruling classes 
of Russia, Ukraine and the NATO countries.

I mean  you don't think that all the overproduction of natural gas and the 
billions the US invested in LNG would precipitate a conflict where the US could 
force the EU to cut supplies from Russia and make the market more open for US 
sources?  Do you?  I know it appears a bit reductionist, but maybe it captures 
the real dialectic.

Just maybe.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group.
View/Reply Online (#34630): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/34630
Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/110506717/21656
-=-=-
POSTING RULES & NOTES
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
#4 Do not exceed five posts a day.
-=-=-
Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io
Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy 
[arch...@mail-archive.com]
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


Reply via email to