Ukrainian
Socialist League – ISL Ukraine
Inter-Imperialist Pact:
Ukraine Between Trump and Putin The current phase of world capitalism has
entered a stage of deep and systemic crisis, where contradictions between
imperialist powers are sharpening, the old liberal world order is
disintegrating, and oppressed peoples are once again becoming the object of
cruel geopolitical transactions.
Marxists have no reason
to mourn the disappearance of the liberal paradigm of the world order — that
old order was neither just nor ideal. It was based on the rules of global
capitalist globalization, where Western imperialism as a whole (the “axis of
good”) cloaked its economic interests in the liberal rhetoric of “defending
human rights,” “fighting for democracy,” and the “free market.” The notion of a
“free market” was artificial from the beginning, far removed from the real
economic and trade relations of the imperialist era. Protectionism, quota-setting,
and restrictive tariffs have always accompanied world trade, and the chatter
about a “free market” was nothing more than a smokescreen to hide the economic
interests of the world’s main players.
The year 2025 is marked
by the degradation of historic international institutions and the strengthening
of authoritarian tendencies in the main imperialist powers. The central episode
of this transformation is the de facto inter-imperialist alliance between
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, forged behind the backs of the Ukrainian
people. This fact destroys the basic norms of international law and symbolizes
the twilight and destruction of the liberal myth of a “world order” supposedly
based on democratic and humanist values.
Only Marxist class
analysis can reveal the true nature of these inter-imperialist agreements and
develop a program for revolutionary alternatives. The Trump-Putin alliance is
not a temporary tactical move but a strategic shift toward a new model of global
governance, in which brutal imperialism replaces the remnants of hypocritical
liberalism.
The Trump-Putin
negotiations, held without Ukraine’s participation, are a slap in the face to
the Ukrainian people and to the bourgeois system of international law established
after the Second World War. Ukrainian media have intensified comparisons with
the “Munich Agreement” of 1938, when the major imperialist powers decided the
fate of the “small country” of Czechoslovakia behind its back. Today, the
bargaining chip is Ukraine.
Trump is betting on
settling the Ukrainian question without regard for the will of the Ukrainian
people. The so-called “Trump peace plan,” whose details have yet to be
revealed, boils down to “freezing” the conflict along the current front line
and lifting sanctions against the Russian Federation — that is, legitimizing
the occupation of 20% of Ukrainian territory.
Aware of the weakness
of his position, Zelensky proposed to Trump the monopolistic exploitation — in
favor of the U.S. — of Ukraine’s rare minerals. Zelensky hoped Trump would
seize on this offer and continue arms deliveries. Instead, he fell into Trump’s
trap, as Trump used the offer as a pretext to demand repayment for the weapons
already supplied. Trump used this as an instrument of economic blackmail
against Ukraine, forcing it toward capitulation. Thus, the contours of a joint
Trump-Putin plan are emerging: the partition of Ukraine between Russian and
American imperialism, in which a supposed “American occupation zone” would accompany
the immoral and monopolistic exploitation of mineral resources that, according
to the Constitution, are the exclusive property of the Ukrainian people.
From an economic
perspective, Ukraine is being turned into an object of neocolonial management:
the U.S.’s monopolistic access to strategic resources, particularly rare
minerals, is a form of blackmail in which even the heroic resistance of the
Ukrainians is threatened in the name of U.S. capitalist profits. The scandal in
the Oval Office (February 28, 2025) between Zelensky and Trump showed that
Trump is not interested in “security guarantees for Ukraine” but rather in
colonial exploitation of Ukraine’s rare minerals.
One of the main
underlying causes of the current U.S. geopolitical shift is Trump’s desire to
dismantle the military-economic alliance between the rising imperialisms of
China and Russia. Trump announced an increase of tariffs on Chinese products to
125% (!), while Russia and its satellite Belarus were “miraculously” left off
the list of affected countries, with the absurd and cynical explanation that
they “do not trade with the U.S.”
Ukraine, bled dry, was
hit with a 10% tariff, while the imperialist aggressor Russia faced none. It is
not hard to imagine that this zero-tariff policy on exports from Russia and
Belarus will encourage additional investment in the economies of the
authoritarian regimes of Putin and Lukashenko.
The Trump
administration is acting as a representative of ultra-right imperialism,
especially after J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Conference (February 14,
2025), which openly displayed an anti-internationalist and pro-authoritarian
stance. Support for post-fascist, far-right, and ultra-conservative forces like
“Alternative for Germany,” “Brothers of Italy,” and dictators like Orbán and
Lukashenko is part of a plan for the full restoration of a reactionary world
order, in which all workers’, national liberation, trade union, and human
rights movements are targeted for destruction.
While not completely
defeated, the liberal bourgeoisie has suffered a blow from the far right from
which it will take a long time to recover. Even the protests against Trump in
the U.S. today are mainly organized by reformist leftists like Bernie Sanders
and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while the core sectors of the liberal bourgeoisie
remain in disarray.
Russia, trapped in a
military stalemate, is using Trump’s radical shift to strengthen its position.
Putin, deprived of resources and legitimacy, receives a political lifeline from
Trump in exchange for promises to “limit” his alliance with China. The idea
recently floated by U.S. administration representatives of a “partition of
Ukraine” among global players recalls not only 1938 but also the imperialist
wars of the early 20th century.
The Ukrainian working
class, especially in the eastern and southern regions where the war is most
acutely felt, has perceived the pact between U.S. and Russian imperialism as a
direct threat to their lives, jobs, and rights. Union activists have declared
that such “agreements” not only threaten Ukraine’s very existence but also
endanger the social rights of workers, putting them in the crosshairs of both
Russian and Western capital. They emphasize that the only possible response to
the “allies’” betrayal is the organization of an independent workers’ movement
and international workers’ solidarity.
The reaction of
Ukrainian workers to the Trump-Putin pact is not only a condemnation of
individual politicians — it marks the beginning of a shift in international
political consciousness, increasingly moving toward class autonomy and a
left-wing alternative.
Ukrainian resistance —
military, social, and, though still weak, class-based — has already shattered
many illusions. Chief among them: Ukrainian workers’ faith that the socalled
“West” represented a democratic unity. The Ukrainian people now understand that
neither U.S. nor EU imperialism are, or can be, reliable and lasting allies of
the resistance. Both use Ukraine as a stage to resolve their own imperialist
contradictions and to satisfy their predatory economic interests.
Trump’s desperate and
chaotic attempts to reshape the internal structure and hierarchy of world
imperialism only accelerate its systemic crisis and expose its inability to
solve the problems of global order.
The friendship of one
set of imperialists against another only revives the specters of the two world
wars in the collective consciousness. And the heroic Ukrainian resistance,
alongside the betrayal by the U.S., highlights that oppressed peoples must
never tie their fate to the interests of any imperialist bloc. Imperialist
predators may quarrel or reconcile among themselves, but they always do so
behind the backs of workers and oppressed peoples alike.
Revolutionary
socialists reject the false choice between “bad and worse” imperialisms. Only
the international workers’ movement can halt the advance of global reaction.
Supporting the Ukrainian people’s resistance to Russian imperialist aggression
does not mean aligning with Western powers; it means fighting for the right of
peoples to self-determination and independent development, free from all forms
of oppression. The struggle for national self-determination and democracy is
only possible through an independent class-based policy.
Revolutionary socialists
are once again destined to be the only true defenders of freedom, democracy,
and peoples’ self-determination. For us, the fight for freedom and democracy is
inseparable from the global anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist struggle of the
oppressed peoples and the working class.
Instead of illusions in
international institutions, “strategic alliances” with liberal bourgeoisies,
and submission to the logic of imperialist blocs — Socialist mobilization from
below! Class independence! Internationalism and workers’ solidarity across all
countries! No to inter-imperialist negotiations behind Ukraine’s back! No to
the far-right alliance of Putin and Trump! Yes to Ukrainian popular resistance
and the right to independence! Yes to revolutionary internationalism! Yes to
international workers’ solidarity! Only thus can we restore hope for freedom,
equality, and socialism worldwide!
******
Дивись також: Oleg Vernyk: On the Key Tendencies in the Development of Capitalist Global Macro-Economy [архів, December, 2. 2011]
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