The imperialist strategy to colonise Ukraine

In the current war of national liberation, Ukraine has won a partial but important victory against the occupation of the Russian army.

By Alexander Iturbe

From the beginning of the war, the IWL-FI has unambiguously supported the Ukrainian resistance and, therefore, we celebrated this victory as a step towards Putin’s military defeat. We affirmed that the central factor that explained it was the heroism and self-sacrifice of the Ukrainian working class in defending their country [1].

At the same time, we pointed out that the supply of arms and technological support by U.S. imperialism had played a major role in this recent Ukrainian offensive [2]. This support is in no way disinterested: it is part of a policy that seeks, on the one hand, to build a regular Ukrainian army dependent on the U.S. On the other, to weaken the independent Territorial Defences as the clearest expression of a process of the armed struggle of the working class that can acquire greater and more dangerous independence. In both respects, the bourgeois Zelensky government acts as an instrument of this policy.

The country’s military dependence on imperialism is one of the central features of a semi-colonial situation. That is why it is one of the strategic objectives that U.S. imperialism has set for itself in Ukraine, with the collaboration of the Zelensky government.

But this strategic objective is not the only one: it is intimately combined with that of advancing the semi-colonisation of the country in the financial and economic fields. This second objective involves not only U.S. imperialism but also the European powers, through the European Union (EU). All the “financial (and even military) aid” that the EU, the IMF and Joe Biden’s government are giving will be cashed in the future, “devouring” Ukraine under the camouflage of its “reconstruction.” That is why all the “aid” instalments they have given and will give in the coming months are tied to commitments signed by Zelensky’s government to guarantee that delivery.

A brief history

Before analysing these commitments, it is important to remember that this process of semi-colonising Ukraine is not new: although it is mediated by the current war, it is a continuation of the one that began in 2014 after the “Maidan revolution” and the fall of the regime of Viktor Fyodorovich Yanukovych. A project of surrender that the Zelensky government (and the Ukrainian bourgeoisie sectors it expresses) took on very clearly in 2019.

Ukraine was a republic that was part of the former Soviet Union (USSR), in which Gorbachev initiated the process of capitalist restoration in 1986. Subsequently, at the end of 1991, the USSR was dissolved and Ukraine became an independent republic. A Ukrainian bourgeoisie began to emerge after the capitalist restoration, mainly from factions of the old Stalinist apparatus, which rapidly enriched themselves by privatising and plundering state enterprises and appropriating part of the rich Ukrainian land.

Despite this rapid enrichment, this Ukrainian bourgeoisie is structurally weak and therefore seeks to be a “junior partner” and dependent on stronger foreign bourgeois powers. Some sectors are linked to the Russian bourgeoisie, with shared businesses, while others seek to link up with European and U.S. imperialism, which generates an oscillating policy.

Faced with this choice – to join the EU as a semi-colony or to remain allied to Putin -, the regime of Viktor Yanukovych took the latter option. In response, the Maidan revolutionary process took place in late 2013 and early 2014. It was a classic democratic revolution, in the sense that it overthrew an essentially Bonapartist regime and achieved much broader democratic freedoms. But in the consciousness of the Ukrainian workers and the masses, there was great political confusion, expressed in the illusion sown by important bourgeois sectors that EU membership would guarantee not only democracy but also independence and economic prosperity.

Despite this confusion and the policy of diverting the revolutionary process through democratic reaction (bourgeois electoral processes), there was a change in the forces balance between the classes, which was expressed in many workers’ strikes with the occupation of enterprises and the formation of new independent trade unions that fought these governments.

At the same time, based on this confusion, Zelensky’s government clearly advanced this policy of semi-colonial integration into the EU and even the possibility of incorporating the country into NATO in 2019. In this framework, Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the internal Ukrainian situation was turned into a war of national liberation for the very existence of the country.

However, as we said in a recent article: “Even in the midst of the war of national resistance, the bourgeoisie and the Zelensky government maintained their strategic project of handing over Ukraine to European as a semi-colony (through membership in the European Union) and U.S. imperialism.” [3] Let us look at the facts, the figures of the “aid” and the “commitments” that, in return, Zelensky’s government is giving in.

The “aid” is an imperialist investment to “eat Ukraine with potatoes”

A report published on the European Commission website (the executive body of the EU) last May, informs us that since the beginning of the war, the EU had “significantly stepped up its support, mobilising around 4.1 billion euros” and that, in the remainder of 2022, it would give it additional loans of 9 billion. [4]

A first clarification: this is not “aid” but loans that Ukraine will have to repay in the future and which are added to the already existing foreign debt. Another article in a specialised U.S. media informs us that foreign debt had risen from 50.7% of GDP in 2021 to 90.7% in 2022. [5]

The EU is planning new future loans to “help Ukraine’s reconstruction.” Denys Shmiyal, the Ukrainian prime minister, estimated the ‘physical damage of the war’ at around 100 billion dollars [6]. In this framework, even in the traditional euphemistic language of these bodies, the “tip of the iceberg” of the intentions of the imperialist powers of the EU is beginning to be seen. On the one hand, the EU report says that Ukraine is going to pay these loans “in tranches with long maturities and concessional interest rates“. On the other, “Member States should agree on making available additional guarantees.” [7]

At the heart of the question is who will lead this ‘reconstruction’ and in the service of whose goals and interests: those from Ukraine as an independent nation or those from the EU powers? With its language, the report answers this question:

“An international coordination platform, the ‘Ukrainian reconstruction platform’, co-led by the Commission representing the European Union and by the Ukrainian government, would work as an overarching strategic governance body, responsible for endorsing a reconstruction plan, drawn up and implemented by Ukraine… The ‘RebuildUkraine’ reconstruction plan endorsed by the platform, based on a needs assessment, would become the basis for the European Union and the other partners [read: US imperialism] to determine the priority areas selected for financing and the specific projects.“

Ursula von der Leyen, the German president of the European Commission, further clarifies the issue: “This means, investments will go hand in hand with reforms that will support Ukraine in pursuing its European path.” In other words: it is not “aid” but investments, and the “reconstruction” will be done according to the priorities set by the imperialist powers and in the service of their interests and their objectives of semi-colonisation of Ukraine.

So far, we have developed the action of the EU imperialist powers. But U.S. imperialism is a partner in this project. As we have seen, its loans and “aid” have immediately concentrated on the military aspect of semi-colonisation. [8] But it also intervenes through the IMF, a body in which it has a qualitative weight.

From all historical experience, we know that the IMF does not lend a single dollar to dependent countries unless they commit themselves to “structural reforms” (i.e. privatisations of state-owned enterprises and facilities for foreign capital) and accept the “missions” of supervision and control of their economic policies. IMF lending to Ukraine began in 2015. The IMF became angry in 2020 because Zelensky’s government was not moving fast enough on one of the key ‘structural reforms’: land privatisation.

Business as usual

The governments of imperialist powers and the big capitalist corporations whose interests they defend never “miss a trick.” This also happens in wars. On the one hand, they place themselves in these wars according to their deep interests and their basic objectives; on the other hand, they take advantage of the wars to do business with them. Thus, we can see immediate business as well as short- and long-term projects.

An example of immediate business is that of arms by U.S. imperialism. The budget items already passed and those now proposed by Joe Biden’s government for the war in Ukraine, as we have seen, are aimed at renewing the stock and technology of its arsenal. This means great opportunities for private companies in the military-industrial complex, such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing.

In terms of short-term business, the focus will clearly be on the “reconstruction” of Ukraine. We do not know yet which U.S. or European companies will benefit from these contracts. But we do have an example from the Iraq war: Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root won large contracts for both the construction of military facilities and the reconstruction of destroyed buildings. Recall that Dick Cheney (then George Bush Jr’s vice president) had been CEO of that company, which, in the process, took a huge leap in size.

In the longer-term business are the so-called “structural reforms” of the Ukrainian state. That is the exploitation of privatisations of state-owned enterprises and the resulting control of key infrastructure and service sectors. Since the 1990s, we have seen numerous examples of what such “reforms” and privatisations mean and what the consequences are: a profound advance in the semi-colonial nature of a country.

The breadbasket of Europe: the very rich Ukrainian lands

However, the most strategic objective of the imperialist powers and their companies is to appropriate the country’s very rich lands. Ukraine has one of the three largest plains of the best land in the world, along with the Argentine pampas and the American central prairies (and some Russian areas).

Not coincidentally, the country is called the “breadbasket of Europe”: before the war, it provided 12 per cent of the world’s wheat exports and 16 per cent of maize exports. Another important product is the sunflower, from which the export of large quantities of oil is derived. The country’s total agricultural exports amounted to US$22 billion in 2020. [9] Ukraine is also rich in metallic and non-metallic minerals, including iron and other rarer but increasingly used elements in new industrial processes, such as titanium, gallium and germanium, with some export weight on world markets. [10]

In other words, land ownership is the key to the control of the Ukrainian economy. So, we are interested in agricultural land, since the country allocates 42.5 million hectares to agriculture (32 million of the highest productivity) out of the total area of just over 60 million hectares – 70% of Ukraine’s land area!

Let’s take a look at the history of its ownership. When Ukraine was part of the former Soviet Union, all arable land was owned by the state and operated by collective farms with farm labourers. After the restoration of capitalism and the dissolution of the USSR (1991), the governments of the now independent Ukraine began a 30-year process of privatisation: today 68% of the land is in private hands while 32% remains in state hands.

Initially, this privatisation was carried out by handing out certificates of ownership of small plots of land to the workers of the former collective farms. This policy was guided and financed by the IMF and other international agencies. It was estimated that there were some seven million new smallholders under these conditions. But declining profitability and the country’s economic crisis meant that many of these farmers became indebted and had to sell their plots. A process of property concentration began, which was capitalised by a new agrarian oligarchy. In 2001, the government instituted a moratorium on these debts, to prevent further transfers of private land, and halted the privatisation of state land. The process we have just analysed was then “frozen.” [11]

The governments of the new political regime that emerged after the Maidan revolution reopened it in 2016. Zelensky, especially, “ordered the Ukrainian Parliament to submit a bill regarding land reform with a goal to open the country’s land market on December 1, 2019.” [12] We have already mentioned that in 2020 the IMF was “angry” with this government because it was not moving fast enough on this “structural reform.”

A policy that will of course be exploited by the Ukrainian agrarian oligarchy. But it essentially benefits the big international food-producing companies, which will be able to buy top-quality land at much better prices than in their own imperialist countries or in others, such as Argentina.

Even during the period of the aforementioned “moratorium” in 2016, it was estimated that “ten multinationals controlled 2.8 million hectares of Ukrainian land” and that, under Zelensky, that figure would have grown to 3.4 million hectares. Other estimates considering partnerships with Ukrainian oligarchs as shareholders put the figure at 6 million.

The war meant an impasse in the implementation of this policy, but it did not mean its end. On the contrary, imperialist governments and big business are aiming for a leap after the end of the war: “Three big US multinationals bought 17 million hectares of prime land from Zelensky” […] “Western banks are imposing the consolidation of the large-scale agribusiness model at the expense of the small producers who constitute a large section of the country’s population.” In the words of a 2019 World Bank report: “the acceleration of private investment in agriculture.“[13]

Without euphemism, a US left-wing publication refers to the whole of Zelensky’s post-war policy (and in some cases already being implemented) as follows: “West prepares to plunder post-war Ukraine with neoliberal shock therapy: privatisation, deregulation, reduction of workers’ protections.” [14]

Some final considerations

We have characterised the military conflict in Ukraine as a just war of national liberation of the Ukrainian people against the Russian invasion. Therefore, we give our unconditional support to the Ukrainian resistance and, as far as we are able, we express this support in concrete ways, as in the 1st and 2nd Workers’ Aid Convoys to Ukraine. This characterisation and this policy place us in the same military camp as the bourgeois Zelensky government in what we Marxists call “unity of action.”

At the same time, also as Marxists, we are fully aware that, within this common military camp and unity of action, there are different and antagonistic class interests. On the one hand, those of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie and the bourgeois Zelensky government; on the other hand, those of the working class and the Ukrainian people. That is why, within the framework of this unity of action, we must politically fight this government that is leading the war.

Firstly, because of the very way it is conducting it: by building a “normal” bourgeois army, dependent on imperialism, to the detriment of the workers and people’s Territorial Defences. Secondly, but no less important, because, as we said in a previous article, “even in the midst of the war of national resistance, that bourgeoisie and Zelensky’s government maintained their strategic project of handing over Ukraine as a semi-colony to European (through accession to the European Union) and U.S. imperialism. In fact, they are putting the efforts and heroism of the Ukrainian people at the service of this project.“

In other words, Zelensky’s government is fighting against subjugation to Russia but, at the same time, is pushing for another subjugation, this time “peaceful.” This means that the Ukrainian working class and people must combine the urgent and indispensable struggle to defend their sovereignty against Russian aggression with the task of defending it against the surrender of that sovereignty to European and U.S. imperialism. This is a policy which the Zelensky government is already pursuing and which it is preparing to leapfrog in the post-war period. In both struggles, for the working class and the Ukrainian people, the need to advance tasks and measures of transition to socialism will be posed.

We speak of a combination of tasks on the dynamic basis of the Trotskyist conception of permanent revolution. That is, how two “democratic” tasks (the struggle for the defence of the country against Russian aggression and the struggle against this project of semi-colonisation of European and U.S. imperialism) are combined with minimal tasks, proper to the working class (such as the defence of wages and working conditions and even the conditions for integrating territorial defences), with tasks proper to the socialist transition, such as the expropriation of the big national and foreign companies, industrial or agrarian, workers’ control of production and distribution, or the repudiation of the foreign debt.

The key to progress in this dynamic is for the Ukrainian working class to advance in its mobilisation and independent organisation, and that is being armed in the war against Russia and organising itself in this struggle. An experience that it must apply to defend itself against the anti-working class laws of Zelensky’s government and against the semi-colonising project that we have analysed, even more so if the war ends with a Ukrainian victory since its measures will begin to be applied swiftly, camouflaged as “reconstruction.”

The IWL-FI statement on 6 September 2022 has formulated in the following way this combination of tasks it proposes to the working class and the Ukrainian people, calling to defend: “the expropriation of all the assets of the Russian oligarchs and enterprises associated with Putin’s regime, the nationalisation and centralisation in the hands of the state of the economy, in the service of national defence, under workers’ control, and the centralisation of Territorial Defences as the organisation of the resistance in workers’ militias favouring the tendency towards independence of the government. We must call to defend national sovereignty at the cost of capitalist profits and defeat layoffs, forced suspensions, and guarantee full employment, as part of a plan of national defence, with a policy of demands and criticism towards the actual policy of Zelensky.” [15]

In this dynamic of permanent revolution, the role of the world working class is also key. On the one hand, in support of the Ukrainian resistance. On the other hand, especially for the workers of the imperialist countries in Europe and the USA, we propose that it should also express itself in the fight against the policy of their governments and companies of “eating Ukraine with potatoes.”

Notes:

[1] On the Ukrainian offensive in Kharkiv and the conditions for Putin’s military defeat.

[2] La guerra de Ucrania y el imperialismo estadounidense

[3] Idem

[4] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_3121

[5] EU Aims to Finalize $9.5 Billion Ukraine Loan Package This Week – Bloomberg

[6] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/09/09/ukraine-recovery-and-reconstruction-needs-estimated-349-billion

[7] See ref [4].

[8] Biden pide US$ 33.000 millones en ayuda a Ucrania, ante nueva fase de la guerra (cnn.com)

[9] ¿Qué recursos naturales y energéticos tiene Ucrania? (expansion.mx)

[10] Idem.

[11] https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/blog/who-really-benefits-creation-land-market-ukraine