A Maoist-Third Worldist Statement on War in the Caucasus

A Maoist-Third Worldist Statement on War in the Caucasus

by End Imperialism and Serve the People 

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

The authoritarian lackey of NATO imperialism, president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili of the National Movement – Democrats, attacked Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia on the night of August 7, 2008. The Georgian air force bombed mostly civilian targets, including hospitals, the university and residential areas, resulting in around 2000 civilian deaths and leading to instant food, electricity and gas shortages, according to Russian and western sources. Up to 34,000 people may have fled from South Ossetia to Russia. Given that the population of South Ossetia is only 100,000, the attack had a devastating effect upon its society. What was the purpose of the aggressive actions of Georgia?

Under Soviet rule, South Ossetia was an autonomous Soviet Socialist region within the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Without doubt, since the break-up of the USSR (which Maoist-Third Worldists regard as having restored capitalism and pursued social-imperialism soon after the death of that “marvellous Georgian” Comrade Stalin (1)), the Ossetic-speaking citizens of South Ossetia have sought to secede from their Georgian rulers as, over the decades, they have been transformed from equal citizens of a multinational socialist state to second-class citizens of a bourgeois client state of imperialism. Capitalist Georgia (2) has consistently denied the right to self-determination for South Ossetia whilst subjecting its own nationhood to the dictates of u$ and NATO imperialism. Georgia is currently the nation with the ignominious distinction of having the third largest number of troops (over 2000 in total) stationed in occupied Iraq and having its soldiers partake in the plunder, rape and wholesale murder which imperialism is inflicting there. 

It is abundantly clear, firstly, that the united $nakes of amerikkka and its partners in NATO (“great britain”, much of western europe and scandinavia) gave the go-ahead for this murderous attack to Georgia. Secondly, it seems highly likely that NATO knew very well what response would be forthcoming from Russia, and chose to attack anyway. It is unlikely that Georgia wished to take control of South Ossetia completely, and may instead have wanted to provoke a full-scale military confrontation with Russia. Professor Michel Chossudovsky (3) writes:

“The question is: was this a deliberate provocation intended to trigger a Russian military response and suck the Russians into a broader military confrontation with Georgia (and allied forces) which could potentially escalate into an all out war? 

Georgia has the third largest contingent of coalition forces in Iraq after the US and the UK, with some 2000 troops. According to reports, Georgian troops in Iraq are now being repatriated in US military planes, to fight Russian forces. (See Debka.com, August 10, 2008).

This US decision to repatriate Georgian servicemen suggests that Washington is intent upon an escalation of the conflict, where Georgian troops are to be used as cannon fodder against a massive deployment of Russian forces.”

What is to be gained on the part of NATO by such reckless military actions? In short, the centres of world imperialism organised under the flag of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation seek to fight proxy wars using Georgian troops for control of oil and gas supplies in the Caucasus and against Russian imperialism’s (and secondarily capitalist China’s) control of the same. (4) The british imperialist oil company BP has constructed a pipeline to transport oil “from Baku in Azerbaijan, through Georgia to the port of Ceyhan” (5) in Turkey and from there into the western european imperialist market. Control of this oil, a hugely lucrative and strategically vital commodity, by imperialist monopoly capitalism is vital to its continued global dominance. 

Russia has the legal right and duty to protect south Ossetia from aggression. Maoist-Third Worldists support the Russian army’s foiling anglo-amerikan imperialism’s designs on the Caucasus. At the same time, we are fully aware of and oppose Russia’s own imperialist hegemony in the region which is also based on plunder and militarism. We are aware of Russia’s shameful participation in the NATO-sponsored fig-leaf, the Orwellian-titled “Partnership for Peace”, which allows for imperialist occupation of Afghanistan under the rubric of “peacekeeping” (6) and of Russia’s criminal occupation and violent repression of Chechnya and Ingushetia. We are resolutely opposed to the pro-Russian bias exhibited in some quarters which has accumulated from anti-Islamic and racist attitudes towards regions like Chechnya, which are believed to be hotbeds of Islamic radicalism by some national chauvinists. Further, there may be lingering pro-Russia sentiment on the part of small sections of the first world “left” cheerleaders of the labor aristocracy, social-chauvinists in the tradition of the revisionist “Communist” Parties. At this moment, however, we believe that Russia is playing a progressive role in the world, in relation to the principal contradiction, that between the oppressed nations of the world and imperialism. 

The u$a and NATO has no belief in the principle of self-determination of nations. The united $nakes led the effort to tear the “Soviet” Union up into fifteen states (thirteen little ones and two big ones), and also to tear up Czechoslovakia (even though a majority of the people there wanted to preserve the state) and Yugoslavia. These projects were justified under the banner of “self-determination.” However, we Maoist-Third Wordlists have noticed that the u$ has not been beating its breast about self-determination for South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Ingushetia, Chechyna, Transnistria, Somaliland, Kurdistan, or Palestine – or even imperialist nations such as the Basque nation, Ireland and Quebec. The u$ does not care about self-determination; it merely uses “self-determination” as a high-sounding excuse whenever it is expedient, and rushes back to the usual oppressor values of “sovereignty” and “territorial integrity” (for the oppressor) when it wants to shore up a puppet nation or keep an oppressed nation under the Yankkkee jackboot.

Maoist-Third Wordlists uphold the principle of the self-determination of nations according to the real-world dynamics of resolving the principal contradiction in favour of the oppressed nations of the world. We believe that small oppressed nations are generally better off together rather than apart. We encourage nations such as the constituents of Yugoslavia to work things out together and unite against imperialism, the principal enemy of the world’s proletariat (exclusively to be found in the Third World). However, we also endorse the rights of oppressed nations to self-determination while nonetheless opposing u$ flunkeyism. We are of the opinion that southern Ossetia would be better off joining the Russian Federation, and that there is no justification in forcing it to remain under the bootheel of imperialist puppet Georgia. We support the self-determination of the Ossetes and the Abkhaz.

Oppose Georgian aggression against South Ossetia!

Uphold the sovereignty and territorial integrity of South Ossetia!

Down With NATO and u$ and EU imperialism!

Support the Russian Federation in their efforts to protect South Ossetian sovereignty!

Russian troops out of Chechnya and Ingushetia!

Notes.

1. In the words of Comrade Lenin.

2. Georgia is a poor and oppressed nation led by a comprador bourgeois government. According to the u$ state department,

“The state minimum wage was $10.80 (20 GEL) a month…. Average wages in private enterprises were $75 to $100 (150 to 200 GEL) monthly; in state enterprises, $15 to $30 (30 to 60 GEL). Unreported trade activities, assistance from family and friend networks, and the sale of personally grown agricultural products often supplemented salaries.” (u$ State Department 2008,http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27838.htm)

For comparison, according to Reuters,

“The highest current minimum wage in China is [USD]$106 a month in the southern business center of Shenzhen. The lowest is $35 a month in the eastern province of Jiangxi. Shanghai, one of the world’s most expensive cities, raised its minimum monthly wage by $7.80 to $98 a month last year.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062802704.html ).

Typically, manufacturing wages in China are around 60 cents an hour. (Judith Banister, ‘Manufacturing earnings and compensation in China: on the basis of published earnings data, estimated compensation ratios, and estimated hours, China’s manufacturing employees averaged about 57 cents compensation per hour worked in 2002′, Monthly Labor Review, August, 2005,http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1153/is_8_128/ai_n15922572/pg_16).

3. Michel Chossudovsky, ‘War in the Caucasus: Towards a Broader Russia-US Military Confrontation?’, Global Research, August 10, 2008, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9788

4. “When the main pipeline that carries oil through Georgia was completed in 2005, it was hailed as a major success in the U.S. policy to diversify its energy supply. Not only did the pipeline transport oil produced in Central Asia, helping move the West off its dependence on the Middle East, but it also accomplished another American goal: It bypassed Russia.U.S. policy makers hoped that diverting oil around Russia would keep it from reasserting control over Central Asia and its enormous oil and natural gas reserves, and would provide a safer alternative to Moscow’s control over export routes that it had inherited from Soviet days. The tug-of-war with Moscow was the latest version of the Great Game, the 19th-century contest between Imperial Britain and Czarist Russia for dominance in the region.” (New York Times, August 13)

5. Statement by CPGB-ML, ‘The whole world must condemn Georgia’s genocide in South Ossetia and support Russia’s intervention in defence of the South Ossetian people’,13 August 2008, http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName….&statementId=15

6. “‘The SOFA [Partnership for Peace Status of Forces (SOFA) agreement signed by Russia Russia in Vilnius, 21 April 2005] will allow us to organise better a rich menu of cooperative activities’, said the NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, at a press conference, ‘It will save us time by providing a legal basis for movement of people and equipment agreed in advance, and it will allow us to act together in new areas, such as strategic airlift.’ The agreement will facilitate organising both joint trainings and exercises as well as real-world cooperation, such as the transport of NATO troops to Afghanistan.” (NATO, ‘Russia to join Partnership Status of Forces agreement’, http://www.nato.int/docu/update/2005/04-april/e0421a.htm.)

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Also see: Maoist-Third Worldists denounce imperialist meddling in Zimbabwe