Stratfor: The Russian Resurgence and the New-Old Front

Stratfor is an intelligence group, made up of people formerly from government intelligence, who still have contacts. This piece is interesting, because it identifies the motivations of all the players, particularly in the Americas, and their relationship with Russia. I didn't know before reading this, why US imperialism, continues with the "War On Drugs." I have disagreements with this post in details as Chavez's relation to FARC, and not mentioning Colombia in this analysis. The writer is not Marxist, and this isn't a Marxist analysis. That is not Stratfor's job. Still this is a valuable analysis.

By Peter ZeihanK
September 15, 2008

Russia is attempting to reforge its Cold War-era influence in its near abroad. This is not simply an issue of nostalgia, but a perfectly logical and predictable reaction to the Russian environment. Russia lacks easily definable, easily defendable borders. There is no redoubt to which the Russians can withdraw, and the only security they know comes from establishing buffers — buffers which tend to be lost in times of crisis. The alternative is for Russia to simply trust other states to leave it alone. Considering Russia’s history of occupations, from the Mongol horde to Napoleonic France to Hitler’s Germany, it is not difficult to surmise why the Russians tend to choose a more activist set of policies.

As such, the country tends to expand and contract like a beating heart — gobbling up nearby territories in times of strength, and then contracting and losing those territories in times of weakness. Rather than what Westerners think of as a traditional nation-state, Russia has always been a multiethnic empire, heavily stocked with non-Russian (and even non-Orthodox) minorities. Keeping those minorities from damaging central control requires a strong internal security and intelligence arm, and hence we get the Cheka, the KGB, and now the FSB.

Nature of the Budding Conflict

Combine a security policy thoroughly wedded to expansion with an internal stabilization policy that institutionalizes terror, and it is understandable why most of Russia’s neighbors do not like Moscow very much. A fair portion of Western history revolves around the formation and shifting of coalitions to manage Russian insecurities.

In the American case specifically, the issue is one of continental control. The United States is the only country in the world that effectively controls an entire continent. Mexico and Canada have been sufficiently intimidated so that they can operate independently only in a very limited sense. (Technically, Australia controls a continent, but with the some 85 percent of its territory unusable, it is more accurate in geopolitical terms to think of it as a small archipelago with some very long bridges.) This grants the United States not only a potentially massive internal market, but also the ability to project power without the fear of facing rearguard security threats. U.S. forces can be focused almost entirely on offensive operations, whereas potential competitors in Eurasia must constantly be on their guard about the neighbors.

The only thing that could threaten U.S. security would be the rise of a Eurasian continental hegemon. For the past 60 years, Russia (or the Soviet Union) has been the only entity that has had a chance of achieving that, largely due to its geographic reach. U.S. strategy for coping with this is simple: containment, or the creation of a network of allies to hedge in Russian political, economic and military expansion. NATO is the most obvious manifestation of this policy imperative, while the Sino-Soviet split is the most dramatic one.

Containment requires that United States counter Russian expansionism at every turn, crafting a new coalition wherever Russia attempts to break out of the strategic ring, and if necessary committing direct U.S. forces to the effort. The Korean and Vietnam wars — both traumatic periods in American history — were manifestations of this effort, as were the Berlin airlift and the backing of Islamist militants in Afghanistan (who incidentally went on to form al Qaeda).

The Georgian war in August was simply the first effort by a resurging Russia to pulse out, expand its security buffer and, ideally, in the Kremlin’s plans, break out of the post-Cold War noose that other powers have tied. The Americans (and others) will react as they did during the Cold War: by building coalitions to constrain Russian expansion. In Europe, the challenges will be to keep the Germans on board and to keep NATO cohesive. In the Caucasus, the United States will need to deftly manage its Turkish alliance and find a means of engaging Iran. In China and Japan, economic conflicts will undoubtedly take a backseat to security cooperation.

Russia and the United States will struggle in all of these areas, consisting as they do the Russian borderlands. Most of the locations will feel familiar, as Russia’s near abroad has been Russia’s near abroad for nearly 300 years. Those locations — the Baltics, Austria, Ukraine, Serbia, Turkey, Central Asia and Mongolia — that defined Russia’s conflicts in times gone by will surface again. Such is the tapestry of history: the major powers seeking advantage in the same places over and over again.

The New Old-Front

But not all of those fronts are in Eurasia. So long as U.S. power projection puts the Russians on the defensive, it is only a matter of time before something along the cordon cracks and the Russians are either fighting a land war or facing a local insurrection. Russia must keep U.S. efforts dispersed and captured by events as far away from the Russian periphery as possible — preferably where Russian strengths can exploit American weakness.

So where is that?

Geography dictates that U.S. strength involves coalition building based on mutual interest and long-range force projection, and internal U.S. harmony is such that America’s intelligence and security agencies have no need to shine. Unlike Russia, the United States does not have large, unruly, resentful, conquered populations to keep in line. In contrast, recall that the multiethnic nature of the Russian state requires a powerful security and intelligence apparatus. No place better reflects Russia’s intelligence strengths and America’s intelligence weakness than Latin America.

The United States faces no traditional security threats in its backyard. South America is in essence a hollow continent, populated only on the edges and thus lacking a deep enough hinterland to ever coalesce into a single hegemonic power. Central America and southern Mexico are similarly fractured, primarily due to rugged terrain. Northern Mexico (like Canada) is too economically dependent upon the United States to seriously consider anything more vibrant than ideological hostility toward Washington. Faced with this kind of local competition, the United States simply does not worry too much about the rest of the Western Hemisphere — except when someone comes to visit.

Stretching back to the time of the Monroe Doctrine, Washington’s Latin American policy has been very simple. The United States does not feel threatened by any local power, but it feels inordinately threatened by any Eastern Hemispheric power that could ally with a local entity. Latin American entities cannot greatly harm American interests themselves, but they can be used as fulcrums by hostile states further abroad to strike at the core of the United States’ power: its undisputed command of North America.

It is a fairly straightforward exercise to predict where Russian activity will reach its deepest. One only needs to revisit Cold War history. Future Russian efforts can be broken down into three broad categories: naval interdiction, drug facilitation and direct territorial challenge.

Naval Interdiction

Naval interdiction represents the longest sustained fear of American policymakers. Among the earliest U.S. foreign efforts after securing the mainland was asserting control over the various waterways used for approaching North America. Key in this American geopolitical imperative is the neutralization of Cuba. All the naval power-projection capabilities in the world mean very little if Cuba is both hostile and serving as a basing ground for an extra-hemispheric power.

The U.S. Gulf Coast is not only the heart of the country’s energy industry, but the body of water that allows the United States to function as a unified polity and economy. The Ohio, Missouri, and Mississippi river basins all drain to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. The economic strength of these basins depends upon access to oceanic shipping. A hostile power in Cuba could fairly easily seal both the Straits of Florida and the Yucatan Channel, reducing the Gulf of Mexico to little more than a lake.

Building on the idea of naval interdiction, there is another key asset the Soviets targeted at which the Russians are sure to attempt a reprise: the Panama Canal. For both economic and military reasons, it is enormously convenient to not have to sail around the Americas, especially because U.S. economic and military power is based on maritime power and access. In the Cold War, the Soviets established friendly relations with Nicaragua and arranged for a favorable political evolution on the Caribbean island of Grenada. Like Cuba, these two locations are of dubious importance by themselves. But take them together — and add in a Soviet air base at each location as well as in Cuba — and there is a triangle of Soviet airpower that can threaten access to the Panama Canal.

Drug Facilitation

The next stage — drug facilitation — is somewhat trickier. South America is a wide and varying land with very little to offer Russian interests. Most of the states are commodity providers, much like the Soviet Union was and Russia is today, so they are seen as economic competitors. Politically, they are useful as anti-American bastions, so the Kremlin encourages such behavior whenever possible. But even if every country in South America were run by anti-American governments, it would not overly concern Washington; these states, alone or en masse, lack the ability to threaten American interests … in all ways but one.

The drug trade undermines American society from within, generating massive costs for social stability, law enforcement, the health system and trade. During the Cold War, the Soviets dabbled with narcotics producers and smugglers, from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to the highland coca farmers of Bolivia. It is not so much that the Soviets encouraged the drug trade directly, but that they encouraged any group they saw as ideologically useful.

Stratfor expects future Russian involvement in such activities to eclipse those of the past. After the Soviet fall, many FSB agents were forced to find new means to financially support themselves. (Remember it was not until 1999 that Vladimir Putin took over the Russian government and began treating Russian intelligence like a bona fide state asset again.) The Soviet fall led many FSB agents, who already possessed more than a passing familiarity with things such as smuggling and organized crime, directly into the heart of such activities. Most of those agents are — formally or not — back in the service of the Russian government, now with a decade of gritty experience on the less savory side of intelligence under their belts. And they now have a deeply personal financial interest in the outcome of future operations.

Drug groups do not need cash from the Russians, but they do need weaponry and a touch of training — needs which dovetail perfectly with the Russians’ strengths. Obviously, Russian state involvement in such areas will be far from overt; it just does not do to ship weapons to the FARC or to one side of the brewing Bolivian civil war with CNN watching. But this is a challenge the Russians are good at meeting. One of Russia’s current deputy prime ministers, Igor Sechin, was the USSR’s point man for weapons smuggling to much of Latin America and the Middle East. This really is old hat for them.

U.S. Stability

Finally, there is the issue of direct threats to U.S. stability, and this point rests solely on Mexico. With more than 100 million people, a growing economy and Atlantic and Pacific ports, Mexico is the only country in the Western Hemisphere that could theoretically (which is hardly to say inevitably) threaten U.S. dominance in North America. During the Cold War, Russian intelligence gave Mexico more than its share of jolts in efforts to cause chronic problems for the United States. In fact, the Mexico City KGB station was, and remains today, the biggest in the world. The Mexico City riots of 1968 were in part Soviet-inspired, and while ultimately unsuccessful at overthrowing the Mexican government, they remain a testament to the reach of Soviet intelligence. The security problems that would be created by the presence of a hostile state the size of Mexico on the southern U.S. border are as obvious as they would be dangerous.

As with involvement in drug activities, which incidentally are likely to overlap in Mexico, Stratfor expects Russia to be particularly active in destabilizing Mexico in the years ahead. But while an anti-American state is still a Russian goal, it is not their only option. The Mexican drug cartels have reached such strength that the Mexican government’s control over large portions of the country is an open question. Failure of the Mexican state is something that must be considered even before the Russians get involved. And simply doing with the Mexican cartels what the Soviets once did with anti-American militant groups the world over could suffice to tip the balance.

In many regards, Mexico as a failed state would be a worse result for Washington than a hostile united Mexico. A hostile Mexico could be intimidated, sanctioned or even invaded, effectively browbeaten into submission. But a failed Mexico would not restrict the drug trade at all. The border would be chaos, and the implications of that go well beyond drugs. One of the United States’ largest trading partners could well devolve into a seething anarchy that could not help but leak into the U.S. proper.

Whether Mexico becomes staunchly anti-American or devolves into the violent chaos of a failed state does not matter much to the Russians. Either one would threaten the United States with a staggering problem that no amount of resources could quickly or easily fix. And the Russians right now are shopping around for staggering problems with which to threaten the United States.

In terms of cost-benefit analysis, all of these options are no-brainers. Threatening naval interdiction simply requires a few jets. Encouraging the drug trade can be done with a few weapons shipments. Destabilizing a country just requires some creativity. However, countering such activities requires a massive outlay of intelligence and military assets — often into areas that are politically and militarily hostile, if not outright inaccessible. In many ways, this is containment in reverse.

Old Opportunities, New Twists

In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega has proven so enthusiastic in his nostalgia for Cold War alignments that Nicaragua has already recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the two territories in the former Soviet state (and U.S. ally) of Georgia that Russia went to war to protect. That makes Nicaragua the only country in the world other than Russia to recognize the breakaway regions. Moscow is quite obviously pleased — and was undoubtedly working the system behind the scenes.

In Bolivia, President Evo Morales is attempting to rewrite the laws that govern his country’s wealth distribution in favor of his poor supporters in the indigenous highlands. Now, a belt of conflict separates those highlands, which are roughly centered at the pro-Morales city of Cochabamba, from the wealthier, more Europeanized lowlands. A civil war is brewing — a conflict that is just screaming for outside interference, as similar fights did during the Cold War. It is likely only a matter of time before the headlines become splattered with pictures of Kalashnikov-wielding Cochabambinos decrying American imperialism.

Yet while the winds of history are blowing in the same old channels, there certainly are variations on the theme. The Mexican cartels, for one, were radically weaker beasts the last time around, and their current strength and disruptive capabilities present the Russians with new options.

So does Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a man so anti-American he seems to be even a few steps ahead of Kremlin propagandists. In recent days, Chavez has already hosted long-range Russian strategic bombers and evicted the U.S. ambassador. A glance at a map indicates that Venezuela is a far superior basing point than Grenada for threatening the Panama Canal. Additionally, Chavez’s Venezuela has already indicated both its willingness to get militarily involved in the Bolivian conflict and its willingness to act as a weapons smuggler via links to the FARC — and that without any heretofore detected Russian involvement. The opportunities for smuggling networks — both old and new — using Venezuela as a base are robust.

Not all changes since the Cold War are good for Russia, however. Cuba is not as blindly pro-Russian as it once was. While Russian hurricane aid to Cuba is a bid to reopen old doors, the Cubans are noticeably hesitant. Between the ailing of Fidel Castro and the presence of the world’s largest market within spitting distance, the emerging Cuban regime is not going to reflexively side with the Russians for peanuts. In Soviet times, Cuba traded massive Soviet subsidies in exchange for its allegiance. A few planeloads of hurricane aid simply won’t pay the bills in Havana, and it is still unclear how much money the Russians are willing to come up with.

There is also the question of Brazil. Long gone is the dysfunctional state; Brazil is now an emerging industrial powerhouse with an energy company, Petroleo Brasileiro, of skill levels that outshine anything the Russians have yet conquered in that sphere. While Brazilian rhetoric has always claimed that Brazil was just about to come of age, it now happens to be true. A rising Brazil is feeling its strength and tentatively pushing its influence into the border states of Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia, as well as into regional rivals Venezuela and Argentina. Russian intervention tends to appeal to those who do not feel they have meaningful control over their own neighborhoods. Brazil no longer fits into that category, and it will not appreciate Russia’s mucking around in its neighborhood.

A few weeks ago, Stratfor published a piece detailing how U.S. involvement in the Iraq war was winding to a close. We received many comments from readers applauding our optimism. We are afraid that we were misinterpreted. “New” does not mean “bright” or “better,” but simply different. And the dawning struggle in Latin America is an example of the sort of “different” that the United States can look forward to in the years ahead. Buckle up.


RENEGADE EYE

Stradfor: Israeli Strategy After the Russo-Georgian War

I enjoy reading the geopolitical analysis at Stratfor. The reports are pure geopolitical analysis, seperated from point of view. The method of Stratfor, is not the same as a Marxist analysis, but it provides a framework, to compliment it. This article about Israel, shatters both the left and right's views. The idea that Israel's existence is in danger is shown to be untrue, as is the left's view of Palestine resistance as a threat to Israel. The narrative that Israel supported Georgia against Russia is shown as incorrect.

By George Friedman
September 08, 2008

The Russo-Georgian war continues to resonate, and it is time to expand our view of it. The primary players in Georgia, apart from the Georgians, were the Russians and Americans. On the margins were the Europeans, providing advice and admonitions but carrying little weight. Another player, carrying out a murkier role, was Israel. Israeli advisers were present in Georgia alongside American advisers, and Israeli businessmen were doing business there. The Israelis had a degree of influence but were minor players compared to the Americans.

More interesting, perhaps, was the decision, publicly announced by the Israelis, to end weapons sales to Georgia the week before the Georgians attacked South Ossetia. Clearly the Israelis knew what was coming and wanted no part of it. Afterward, unlike the Americans, the Israelis did everything they could to placate the Russians, including having Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert travel to Moscow to offer reassurances. Whatever the Israelis were doing in Georgia, they did not want a confrontation with the Russians.

It is impossible to explain the Israeli reasoning for being in Georgia outside the context of a careful review of Israeli strategy in general. From that, we can begin to understand why the Israelis are involved in affairs far outside their immediate area of responsibility, and why they responded the way they did in Georgia.

We need to divide Israeli strategic interests into four separate but interacting pieces:

The Palestinians living inside Israel’s post-1967 borders.
The so-called “confrontation states” that border Israel, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and especially Egypt.
The Muslim world beyond this region.
The great powers able to influence and project power into these first three regions.

The Palestinian Issue

The most important thing to understand about the first interest, the Palestinian issue, is that the Palestinians do not represent a strategic threat to the Israelis. Their ability to inflict casualties is an irritant to the Israelis (if a tragedy to the victims and their families), but they cannot threaten the existence of the Israeli state. The Palestinians can impose a level of irritation that can affect Israeli morale, inducing the Israelis to make concessions based on the realistic assessment that the Palestinians by themselves cannot in any conceivable time frame threaten Israel’s core interests, regardless of political arrangements. At the same time, the argument goes, given that the Palestinians cannot threaten Israeli interests, what is the value of making concessions that will not change the threat of terrorist attacks? Given the structure of Israeli politics, this matter is both substrategic and gridlocked.

The matter is compounded by the fact that the Palestinians are deeply divided among themselves. For Israel, this is a benefit, as it creates a de facto civil war among Palestinians and reduces the threat from them. But it also reduces pressure and opportunities to negotiate. There is no one on the Palestinian side who speaks authoritatively for all Palestinians. Any agreement reached with the Palestinians would, from the Israeli point of view, have to include guarantees on the cessation of terrorism. No one has ever been in a position to guarantee that — and certainly Fatah does not today speak for Hamas. Therefore, a settlement on a Palestinian state remains gridlocked because it does not deliver any meaningful advantages to the Israelis.

The Confrontation States

The second area involves the confrontation states. Israel has formal peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. It has had informal understandings with Damascus on things like Lebanon, but Israel has no permanent understanding with Syria. The Lebanese are too deeply divided to allow state-to-state understandings, but Israel has had understandings with different Lebanese factions at different times (and particularly close relations with some of the Christian factions).

Jordan is effectively an ally of Israel. It has been hostile to the Palestinians at least since 1970, when the Palestine Liberation Organization attempted to overthrow the Hashemite regime, and the Jordanians regard the Israelis and Americans as guarantors of their national security. Israel’s relationship with Egypt is publicly cooler but quite cooperative. The only group that poses any serious challenge to the Egyptian state is The Muslim Brotherhood, and hence Cairo views Hamas — a derivative of that organization — as a potential threat. The Egyptians and Israelis have maintained peaceful relations for more than 30 years, regardless of the state of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The Syrians by themselves cannot go to war with Israel and survive. Their primary interest lies in Lebanon, and when they work against Israel, they work with surrogates like Hezbollah. But their own view on an independent Palestinian state is murky, since they claim all of Palestine as part of a greater Syria — a view not particularly relevant at the moment. Therefore, Israel’s only threat on its border comes from Syria via surrogates in Lebanon and the possibility of Syria’s acquiring weaponry that would threaten Israel, such as chemical or nuclear weapons.

The Wider Muslim World

As to the third area, Israel’s position in the Muslim world beyond the confrontation states is much more secure than either it or its enemies would like to admit. Israel has close, formal strategic relations with Turkey as well as with Morocco. Turkey and Egypt are the giants of the region, and being aligned with them provides Israel with the foundations of regional security. But Israel also has excellent relations with countries where formal relations do not exist, particularly in the Arabian Peninsula.

The conservative monarchies of the region deeply distrust the Palestinians, particularly Fatah. As part of the Nasserite Pan-Arab socialist movement, Fatah on several occasions directly threatened these monarchies. Several times in the 1970s and 1980s, Israeli intelligence provided these monarchies with information that prevented assassinations or uprisings.

Saudi Arabia, for one, has never engaged in anti-Israeli activities beyond rhetoric. In the aftermath of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, Saudi Arabia and Israel forged close behind-the-scenes relations, especially because of an assertive Iran — a common foe of both the Saudis and the Israelis. Saudi Arabia has close relations with Hamas, but these have as much to do with maintaining a defensive position — keeping Hamas and its Saudi backers off Riyadh’s back — as they do with government policy. The Saudis are cautious regarding Hamas, and the other monarchies are even more so.

More to the point, Israel does extensive business with these regimes, particularly in the defense area. Israeli companies, working formally through American or European subsidiaries, carry out extensive business throughout the Arabian Peninsula. The nature of these subsidiaries is well-known on all sides, though no one is eager to trumpet this. The governments of both Israel and the Arabian Peninsula would have internal political problems if they publicized it, but a visit to Dubai, the business capital of the region, would find many Israelis doing extensive business under third-party passports. Add to this that the states of the Arabian Peninsula are afraid of Iran, and the relationship becomes even more important to all sides.

There is an interesting idea that if Israel were to withdraw from the occupied territories and create an independent Palestinian state, then perceptions of Israel in the Islamic world would shift. This is a commonplace view in Europe. The fact is that we can divide the Muslim world into three groups.

First, there are those countries that already have formal ties to Israel. Second are those that have close working relations with Israel and where formal ties would complicate rather than deepen relations. Pakistan and Indonesia, among others, fit into this class. Third are those that are absolutely hostile to Israel, such as Iran. It is very difficult to identify a state that has no informal or formal relations with Israel but would adopt these relations if there were a Palestinian state. Those states that are hostile to Israel would remain hostile after a withdrawal from the Palestinian territories, since their issue is with the existence of Israel, not its borders.

The point of all this is that Israeli security is much better than it might appear if one listened only to the rhetoric. The Palestinians are divided and at war with each other. Under the best of circumstances, they cannot threaten Israel’s survival. The only bordering countries with which the Israelis have no formal agreements are Syria and Lebanon, and neither can threaten Israel’s security. Israel has close ties to Turkey, the most powerful Muslim country in the region. It also has much closer commercial and intelligence ties with the Arabian Peninsula than is generally acknowledged, although the degree of cooperation is well-known in the region. From a security standpoint, Israel is doing well.

The Broader World

Israel is also doing extremely well in the broader world, the fourth and final area. Israel always has needed a foreign source of weapons and technology, since its national security needs outstrip its domestic industrial capacity. Its first patron was the Soviet Union, which hoped to gain a foothold in the Middle East. This was quickly followed by France, which saw Israel as an ally in Algeria and against Egypt. Finally, after 1967, the United States came to support Israel. Washington saw Israel as a threat to Syria, which could threaten Turkey from the rear at a time when the Soviets were threatening Turkey from the north. Turkey was the doorway to the Mediterranean, and Syria was a threat to Turkey. Egypt was also aligned with the Soviets from 1956 onward, long before the United States had developed a close working relationship with Israel.

That relationship has declined in importance for the Israelis. Over the years the amount of U.S. aid — roughly $2.5 billion annually — has remained relatively constant. It was never adjusted upward for inflation, and so shrunk as a percentage of Israeli gross domestic product from roughly 20 percent in 1974 to under 2 percent today. Israel’s dependence on the United States has plummeted. The dependence that once existed has become a marginal convenience. Israel holds onto the aid less for economic reasons than to maintain the concept in the United States of Israeli dependence and U.S. responsibility for Israeli security. In other words, it is more psychological and political from Israel’s point of view than an economic or security requirement.

Israel therefore has no threats or serious dependencies, save two. The first is the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a power that cannot be deterred — in other words, a nation prepared to commit suicide to destroy Israel. Given Iranian rhetoric, Iran would appear at times to be such a nation. But given that the Iranians are far from having a deliverable weapon, and that in the Middle East no one’s rhetoric should be taken all that seriously, the Iranian threat is not one the Israelis are compelled to deal with right now.

The second threat would come from the emergence of a major power prepared to intervene overtly or covertly in the region for its own interests, and in the course of doing so, redefine the regional threat to Israel. The major candidate for this role is Russia.

During the Cold War, the Soviets pursued a strategy to undermine American interests in the region. In the course of this, the Soviets activated states and groups that could directly threaten Israel. There is no significant conventional military threat to Israel on its borders unless Egypt is willing and well-armed. Since the mid-1970s, Egypt has been neither. Even if Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were to die and be replaced by a regime hostile to Israel, Cairo could do nothing unless it had a patron capable of training and arming its military. The same is true of Syria and Iran to a great extent. Without access to outside military technology, Iran is a nation merely of frightening press conferences. With access, the entire regional equation shifts.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, no one was prepared to intervene in the Middle East the way the Soviets had. The Chinese have absolutely no interest in struggling with the United States in the Middle East, which accounts for a similar percentage of Chinese and U.S. oil consumption. It is far cheaper to buy oil in the Middle East than to engage in a geopolitical struggle with China’s major trade partner, the United States. Even if there was interest, no European powers can play this role given their individual military weakness, and Europe as a whole is a geopolitical myth. The only country that can threaten the balance of power in the Israeli geopolitical firmament is Russia.

Israel fears that if Russia gets involved in a struggle with the United States, Moscow will aid Middle Eastern regimes that are hostile to the United States as one of its levers, beginning with Syria and Iran. Far more frightening to the Israelis is the idea of the Russians once again playing a covert role in Egypt, toppling the tired Mubarak regime, installing one friendlier to their own interests, and arming it. Israel’s fundamental fear is not Iran. It is a rearmed, motivated and hostile Egypt backed by a great power.

The Russians are not after Israel, which is a sideshow for them. But in the course of finding ways to threaten American interests in the Middle East — seeking to force the Americans out of their desired sphere of influence in the former Soviet region — the Russians could undermine what at the moment is a quite secure position in the Middle East for the United States.

This brings us back to what the Israelis were doing in Georgia. They were not trying to acquire airbases from which to bomb Iran. That would take thousands of Israeli personnel in Georgia for maintenance, munitions management, air traffic control and so on. And it would take Ankara allowing the use of Turkish airspace, which isn’t very likely. Plus, if that were the plan, then stopping the Georgians from attacking South Ossetia would have been a logical move.

The Israelis were in Georgia in an attempt, in parallel with the United States, to prevent Russia’s re-emergence as a great power. The nuts and bolts of that effort involves shoring up states in the former Soviet region that are hostile to Russia, as well as supporting individuals in Russia who oppose Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s direction. The Israeli presence in Georgia, like the American one, was designed to block the re-emergence of Russia.

As soon as the Israelis got wind of a coming clash in South Ossetia, they — unlike the United States — switched policies dramatically. Where the United States increased its hostility toward Russia, the Israelis ended weapons sales to Georgia before the war. After the war, the Israelis initiated diplomacy designed to calm Russian fears. Indeed, at the moment the Israelis have a greater interest in keeping the Russians from seeing Israel as an enemy than they have in keeping the Americans happy. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney may be uttering vague threats to the Russians. But Olmert was reassuring Moscow it has nothing to fear from Israel, and therefore should not sell weapons to Syria, Iran, Hezbollah or anyone else hostile to Israel.

Interestingly, the Americans have started pumping out information that the Russians are selling weapons to Hezbollah and Syria. The Israelis have avoided that issue carefully. They can live with some weapons in Hezbollah’s hands a lot more easily than they can live with a coup in Egypt followed by the introduction of Russian military advisers. One is a nuisance; the other is an existential threat. Russia may not be in a position to act yet, but the Israelis aren’t waiting for the situation to get out of hand.

Israel is in control of the Palestinian situation and relations with the countries along its borders. Its position in the wider Muslim world is much better than it might appear. Its only enemy there is Iran, and that threat is much less clear than the Israelis say publicly. But the threat of Russia intervening in the Muslim world — particularly in Syria and Egypt — is terrifying to the Israelis. It is a risk they won’t live with if they don’t have to. So the Israelis switched their policy in Georgia with lightning speed. This could create frictions with the United States, but the Israeli-American relationship isn’t what it used to be.

RENEGADE EYE

War in South Ossetia – a Socialist Federation of the Caucasus is the Only Way Out

This is the 300th post on this blog (hurrah)!

By Tom Rollings and Francesco Merli
Friday, 15 August 2008

After months and years of sniper shooting and military build-up on both sides, war broke out in South Ossetia on the night of Thursday, August 8 when Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered an invasion of the autonomous republic and the criminal shelling of its capital Tskhinvali. According to official Russian sources, up to 1,600 civilians and several Russian soldiers deployed for peace-keeping tasks were killed in the fighting before Russian forces retook the autonomous Republic. Thousands of refugees abandoned everything they had and flooded into North Ossetia in Russia calling for Russia to come to their rescue.



This was the justification that the Kremlin was seeking in order to settle down accounts in the region and reaffirm its role as a regional power. The moment couldn't be a more favourable one, with US imperialism entangled in Irak and Afghanistan and without means available to open a new front in the Caucasus.

Given the speed with which the Russian army responded (within a few hours after the Georgian attack) it is clear that the Russian strategists were expecting the attack and the armed forces deployed at the borders with South Ossetia were already in on a war footing, ready to strike back.


Despite the heavy fighting the Georgian forces proved to be unable to take control of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali and were taken aback. The Russian counter-offensive crushed the Georgian army and retook control of South Ossetia in less than 48 hours. On Monday, Russian tanks and troops entered Georgian territory towards the city of Gori (dangerously close to the capital, Tbilisi), to show that they could easily take over the strategic centres of the country, while bombing key military infrastructures and cutting off Georgian access to Abkhazia, a second autonomous republic that Georgia claims, and the ports in the Black Sea.

The counter-offensive involved high altitude bombing that destroyed the centre of Gori, killing dozens of civilians and a Dutch cameraman. Similar scenes to those witnessed in South Ossetia, with thousands of Georgian civilians fleeing their homes in terror from the Russian counter-attack have been reported by the media internationally.

Imperialist Meddling Caused the War

Despite what the Russian and Georgian government are claiming, the war had nothing progressive on both sides. The present nightmare of war and nationalism in the Caucasus is the result of imperialist meddling. But it is also the result of the national chauvinism of the former Soviet bureaucracy, which was rotten with Great Russian chauvinism, and which sparked off the rise of regional and national chauvinism against Moscow. These centrifugal tendencies were a factor in the break-up of the USSR, and, as was the case in the former Yugoslavia, led to bloody civil wars in many of the former Republics. These conflicts to this day remain a series of festering wounds, which have not been resolved and can explode into violence at any time.

Criminally, American and Russian imperialism have interwoven these conflicts in their own struggle for spheres of influence and strategic interests, with American imperialism building up Georgia as a bulwark against Russia in the south Caucasus. Russia in its turn is using South Ossetia and Abkhazia as pawns in its battle to redraw the spheres of influence, which are connected to the strategic importance of Georgia as a pipeline route for Caspian oil to the west, and possibly gas as well in the future.

Alan Woods explained this process clearly in the article Georgia's "peaceful revolution" heralds new conflicts, published on In Defence of Marxism back in November 2003, at the time of the rise to power of Saakashvili:

"With Georgian President Shevardnadze's resignation, a radical, pro-U.S. opposition has come to power in Tbilisi. This is part of a general thrust to increase Washington's influence in the Caucasus, but it will have set alarm bells ringing in the Kremlin. The Russians will not remain with arms folded while a key country on her southern border passes directly into the camp of US imperialism.

"These events will undoubtedly pave the way for greater conflict and disintegration in Georgia. The Russians will tighten the screws on Georgia. So-called independent regions and pro-Moscow political leaders are only too willing to pick a fight with the new leadership in the capital. Since neither side enjoys majority support, chaos and violence will likely prevail, causing further upheavals, wars, bloodshed and misery throughout this beautiful but unhappy region and sabotaging U.S. plans to pump Caspian oil westward.

"Nino Burdzhanadze was giving her first televised national address following the resignation of Eduard Shevardnadze: ‘We have managed to overcome the gravest crisis in Georgia's recent history without shedding a single drop of blood,' Ms Burdzhanadze said. But she spoke too soon. The intrigues of the imperialists will cause a lot of blood to flow before the crisis is settled one way or another. The new leaders are already casting a nervous look over their shoulders at Russia. Declaring the disobedience campaign over, she said the country must work to strengthen its ties with its neighbours and "the great state of Russia". But fine words will not impress the Kremlin. Russia will be looking very closely at the policies and conduct of the new government in Tblisi, and preparing to tighten the screws. The result will be new wars, chaos and horrors without end."

And added further on:

"Washington and Moscow treat the small, weak, divided Caucasian states as mere pawns in a game in which the whole region acts as a gigantic chessboard. America makes a move, Russia responds, and the result is a war, an assassination, an explosion, a military coup or a ‘bloodless revolution'. We are now awaiting the next move in the game. We do not know when or where Moscow will respond, but one thing we do know: the losers will be the ordinary people, the poor, the defenceless."

In the epoch of imperialism, small nations such as Georgia or Ossetia are too small to play an independent role. National independence under capitalism for such nations does not mean freedom but more militarism and oppression in the interests of one power against another.

Why Did Georgia Attack?

On the part of the Georgian ruling elite, the attack on South Ossetia was a calculated bet that backfired them. Saakashvili barely survived last December to a massive movement of protest against corruption. He got out of it denouncing the movement as a Russian conspiracy and proclaiming a State of Emergency while at the same time calling for a snapshot presidential election in January, which he won. In April, Russian President Putin made a deal providing Abkhazia and South Ossetia with special relations with the Russian Federation. This move forced Saakashvili's hand. The Georgian President could not stand by and do nothing as Russian interference in the Caucasus grew unhindered under his very nose.

What Saakashvili was betting upon was the idea that Georgia could force the position in South Ossetia, although without occupying it permanently which would be impossible, in the attempt to rally the Georgian population around his nationalist agenda. They expected that despite all protests, the Russians would take the humiliation, like they did in relation to Kosovo, or the expansion of NATO to the Baltic states, but they would not dare to engage in a direct military intervention against a close ally of US imperialism like Georgia. After all, they might have thought, that's what Russia had been doing over the last years every time its interests collided with those of the United States!

But there is something more than that. It is very difficult to imagine that Saakashvili launched the attack against US wishes. The Georgian government is dependent on US aid and support, and US strategists must have endorsed Saakashvili's bet: a serious mistake on their part. But they did so for their own imperialist purposes: to test once again the reaction of Russia. Now that they have disastrously lost their bet, they have two options, either to admit the mistake of not having considered that relations of forces between USA and Russia in the region have changed, or to pretend that the Georgian government fooled them, hiding its intentions. But even if we believed that the Georgians acted on their initiative, how could Saakashvili hide the military preparations for the attack? Should we believe that the Russian security services were better informed than the hundreds of US advisors and diplomats that crowded Tbilisi? In both cases US imperialism comes out of this conflict with its credibility compromised.

Russian Imperialism Strengthened

On the other side, Russia is not the same country it was 10 years ago. It has recovered from its previous weakness both from an economic and military point of view and in recent years had been looking for a way to break up the encirclement strategy orchestrated by US imperialism since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Over the last 15 years US imperialism managed to take advantage of the crisis of Russia to establish strong ties and alliances with former USSR allies or breakaway republics from the Soviet Union of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe and the Baltic. NATO's expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1998 and again in 2004, with the second expansion that absorbed the rest of the former satellites of the USSR in Central Europe and the three Baltic states, were rightly considered as strategic threats from the Russian military elite and convinced the Kremlin that they had to seize every opportunity to reverse this position.

The changed attitude and growing bargaining economic power of the Russian government was highlighted in the last years by the unilateral decisions to cut gas supply to Ukraine and the Czech republic, but Russia never resorted to the use of military power before August 8. What happened? A Geopolitical Intelligence Report by Stratfor commented:

"The Russians had changed dramatically, along with the balance of power in the region. They welcomed the opportunity to drive home the new reality, which was that they could invade Georgia and the United States and Europe could not respond. As for risk, they did not view the invasion as risky. Militarily, there was no counter. Economically, Russia is an energy exporter doing quite well - indeed, the Europeans need Russian energy even more than the Russians need to sell it to them. Politically, as we shall see, the Americans needed the Russians more than the Russians needed the Americans. Moscow's calculus was that this was the moment to strike. The Russians had been building up to it for months...and they struck."

Georgia happened to be the weak link in the chain of US imperialism network of alliances in the region and the best way for Russia to show the world (and above all, to the neighbouring countries) that US imperialism was not able to deliver anymore what promised, that is to protect the weak former Soviet satellites from their powerful neighbour. As Stratfor director George Friedman again puts it:

"The Russians knew the United States would denounce their attack. This actually plays into Russian hands. The more vocal senior leaders are, the greater the contrast with their inaction, and the Russians wanted to drive home the idea that American guarantees are empty talk."

Bitter Surprise for US Imperialism

The war in Georgia has forced the sudden recognition of a reality: Russia has emerged as a regional imperialist power strong enough to claim back the former Russian sphere of influence from the United States. The arrogant comment "They're not a major power, they're Saudi Arabia with trees," more significant because it comes from a long-term serving US diplomat (the Ex-US ambassador to the UN) interviewed on the BBC on August 13 reveals to what extent US imperialists have been taken by surprise by this development.

US president George Bush is not the cleverest man in the world, but in relation to Georgia was forced by more intelligent advisors to adopt a careful line. Although using a belligerent rhetoric to insinuate that Russia would be expelled from the 21st century modern world of the advanced countries if they did not change their attitude, he could not announce any action or concrete measure, apart from promising humanitarian aid delivered by the US military to Georgia.

On Tuesday, August 12, French President Sarkozy, current head of the EU, visited Moscow and then Tbilisi to broker a deal. But what we already said for the United States is even truer for the EU: there is not much the European Union can do with Russia in control on the ground. A deal might be reached only on the grounds that Russia has achieved her targets in the war.

Chauvinist Poison

In Russia, the ruling elite has enrolled the mass media in fuelling a wave of war hysteria. The suffering of the South Ossetian population was used to manipulate the understandable outburst of popular indignation and justify the counter-attack, but the war propaganda connected with a deep rooted resentment against US imperialism amongst the Russian working class. The trade union and Communist Party leaders have capitulated to the Kremlin on the war, just as they do not seriously challenge its line in peace. Instead of carrying the line of the working class into mainstream politics, they carry bourgeois ideology into the labour and communist movement. This is particularly clear on the question of war. Because of the lack of alternative, this will temporarily increase the support for Putin.

But militarism is a curse for the Russian people. The counter-attack on Georgia is a sign that the imperialist ambitions of the Kremlin and the greed of the oligarchs can lead to new adventures. Large Russian populations live in the Crimea, the Baltic states and Kazakhstan. Where will the defence of Russian citizens outside of Russia's borders end? The economic outlook for Russia is uncertain. The government as well as the capitalists are preparing another wave of cuts on living standards and attacks on rights, particularly workers and trade unionists' rights. The chauvinist poison is the weapon that the Russian ruling class always uses to make Russian workers and ordinary people accept that the military comes first while people themselves are treated as second-rate citizens.

In Georgia, where there are already thousands of refugees from the first war in South Ossetia from 1992-4, there is bitter anger at the defeat in South Ossetia. On Tuesday a crowd of 150,000 gathered in Tblisi to express their support for Saakashvili in a mood of national solidarity boosted by a hatred of Russian aggression. Yet the future of Saakashvili, regardless of high support for him at the moment, is uncertain. His policies of depending on the West to beat back Russia have ended in failure. Many demonstrators showed their rage cursing US imperialism for not coming to their rescue.

The Propaganda War - the Precedent of Kosovo and the Question of NATO

The Russian government claimed that its military operations in South Ossetia were motivated by humanitarian considerations. In this the Kremlin used the logic that NATO used in justifying its attack on the former Yugoslavia. But, NATO strategists reply, Russia opposed the NATO war on the Balkans - if NATO arguments were wrong in relation to Kosovo, why are Russian arguments any better in relation to South Ossetia? Here the Russian reply is much stronger than the lies that NATO churned out back in 1999. Over 90% of South Ossetia's population are Russian citizens, and Russia's own peace-keeping force was being directly attacked. None of these points applied to NATO. The Russian government therefore concludes that it acted perfectly legitimately in defending South Ossetia from Georgian aggression.

Two conclusions follow from this. Firstly, the defeat of Georgia is a setback for NATO and US imperialism, which weakens NATO in the Caucasus. Secondly, the workers and people of Georgia, including internal refugees who fled South Ossetia and Abkhazia in previous fighting, cannot rely on imperialism in their struggle for their rights. They have all been used as small change in the power politics of contending imperialist powers. The only alternative is the class struggle, beginning with the class struggle against the Russian and Georgian oligarchs.

On the Defence of South Ossetia

The killing of ordinary civilians in South Ossetia is criminal and completely reactionary. But it does not justify the further killing of ordinary civilians in Georgia. On the contrary this will serve to provoke further ethnic tit-for-tat killings in the future.

The systematic preparation for the war on both Georgian and Russian sides demonstrates that both sides are following their own, reactionary interests. On July 17th over 8,000 Russian troops and 700 units of heavy armour took part in a training exercise called "Kavkaz 2008." The exercises involved rehearsing fighting terrorists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and included preparations for evacuating refugees. The day before 600 Georgian troops conducted a joint military training exercise with 1,000 US troops in an operation called "Rapid reaction 2008."

The truth is that for the Kremlin the question of South Ossetia and the rights of the Ossetians is only of secondary importance.

The fact that the theatre of war extended far beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia also underlines that the aim of the Russian rulers was not the defence of Ossetian people as they claimed, but they wanted to inflict a blow to Georgia and undermine its stability as an independent entity, in order to enforce a regime change in Tbilisi. The maps below show the areas of fighting and Russian bombardments.

The question of peaceful relations in the Caucasus will not be resolved by the presence of any number of armies in the region. Putin declared that South Ossetia will not be reintegrated into Georgia. It is also clear that South Ossetia is too small to function as a viable separate state, and that any declaration of national independence would likely be a step towards its integration into the Russian Federation.

Imperialism and capitalism are part of the problem, not the solution. The national question simply cannot be solved within capitalism. This is true not for ideological reasons, but for very material ones. Lenin described the national question as a matter of bread. The only way to solve it is through the development of the productive forces. This can be achieved only liberating oppressed nationalities from imperialist interference and can be fully developed only by means of the expropriation of the property of imperialist companies and of the local oligarchs and harmonic planning of the productive forces under the democratic control and management of the workers.

How can the question of return for all refugees be solved on a capitalist basis? If we consider it in the frame of capitalism it would only mean increased competition to access fewer resources, jobs, houses, medical assistance, education, and other services. It would provoke even sharper tensions on national or religious lines. Independence for South Ossetia or its integration in the Russian federation would end up inevitably in the ethnic cleansing of the Georgian minority of the South Ossetian population, which in turn will strengthen the resentment of the Georgian population and prepare new instability and wars.

The Complexity of the National Question in the Caucasus

The Caucasus has been for thousands of years a crossroad of different peoples, languages and religions. The perspective of a physical separation of the different peoples as a "solution" to the national question is reactionary madness.

Let's for example see the case of North Ossetia today, as well as other national Republics in the Caucasus. With the collapse of the USSR North Ossetians, who were Russian citizens, fought against their Ingush neighbours, who were also Russian citizens. This war was the tragic result of Stalin's catastrophic policies on the national question. Hundreds of thousands of Ingush (as well as Chechen) people were exiled on his orders in the 1940s (see Stalin Liquidates Two Republics by Ted Grant).

Much of the land of the Ingush people has not been returned to them. Thousands of Ingush still live in primitive conditions in what are basically refugee camps. The potential for violence at any moment explains why terrorists chose Beslan, a town in North Ossetia, for a horrific terrorist attack on a school on September 1st, 2004. They wanted Ossetians to assume the terrorists were Ingush, and to provoke a new civil war, which could have happened in 2004 and could still happen in the future. Yet the Ossetians who moved onto their land and worked on it for two or three generations, and who also have nowhere else to go, also have rights that need to be considered. This is a complicated and sensitive question.

Back to Lenin!

In his book, Russia - From Revolution to Counterrevolution, written in 1996, Ted Grant summed up the approach of Lenin and the Bolsheviks to the national question, which is worth quoting at length:

"Tsarist Russia was a prison house of nationalities. One of the key reasons for the success of the Bolshevik Revolution was its approach to the national question. Lenin realised that the only way a new socialist federation could be built was on the basis of complete equality of the national minorities that made up Russia. There could be no compulsion of one nation by another. A socialist republic could only be established on a voluntary basis, as a voluntary union of nationalities. As a consequence, the right of nations to self determination was enshrined on the banner of the party and the young Soviet republic, up to and including secession.

"Lenin stood for the unity of the peoples of the former Tsarist empire, but it had to be a voluntary unity. That is why he insisted from the very beginning on the right to self-determination. This idea which is frequently misinterpreted to mean a demand for separation is entirely incorrect. The Bolsheviks did not advocate separation, but defended the broadest possible extension of national self-determination, up to and including separation. No one has the right to oblige a people to live within the confines of a state when the majority do not wish to do so. But the right to self-determination no more implies the demand to separate than the right to divorce means the demand that all couples must separate, or that the right to abortion means that all pregnancies must be terminated."

But is also important to point out that:

"The right of self-determination was an important part of Lenin's programme, insofar as it demonstrated clearly to the oppressed workers and peasants (especially the latter) of Poland, Georgia, Latvia and the Ukraine that the Russian workers had no interest in oppressing them and would firmly defend their right to determine their own destiny. But this was only half of Lenin's programme on the national question. The other half was equally as important - the need to uphold the union of the proletariat above all national, linguistic or religious differences. As far as the Bolshevik Party was concerned, Lenin always opposed any tendency to divide the party (and the workers' movement in general) along national lines."

Lenin was opposed to any manifestation of Great Russian chauvinism. "I declare war to the death of Great Russian chauvinism", he wrote to Kamenev, and regarded this question as so important to determine his irrevocable break with Stalin when he was already terminally ill on the question of the shameful behaviour of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky against the opposition of the Georgian Communists' to their plans for the Federation. As Ted Grant explained:

"After the Revolution, Lenin hoped that there could be a voluntary and fraternal union of the peoples of the former Tsarist empire in the form of a Soviet Federation. To this end, he demanded that the nationalities be treated with extreme sensitivity. Every manifestation of Great Russian chauvinism was to be rooted out. As a matter of fact, for some time after October, the word ‘Russia' disappeared altogether from official documents. The official name of the homeland of October was simply ‘the Workers' State'."

Lenin's approach is the key to look for a way out from this nightmare. In the Caucasus and in the rest of the former Soviet Union.

For a New October

The class struggle in all these countries, beginning with Russia, is now poisoned by the national question. Russian workers will not gain anything from the war in Georgia except an emboldened Putin and the mushrooming of neo-Nazi organisations, which will engage in violence against workers and youth from the Caucasus, and against Russian workers and their organisations in the future. Only the Marxists can provide a programme and a perspective for resolving the scars of the national question, which is dependent on the struggle of the working class and the establishment of a socialist federation of states in the former Soviet Union and internationally.

The socialist alternative may seem far-off and difficult. But the foundations for it were already laid in the past in practice by the October Revolution. This is an inspiration for the struggle against capitalism, imperialism and nationalism today. Otherwise, the capitalist present is horror without end.

Today the enemy of the Russian working class are their new capitalist masters. This is already visible in the powerful class hatred against the capitalists. The mood amongst workers is not different in other former Soviet republics, including Georgia, where there is a sharp class polarisation in society and oligarchs of the likes of Kakha Benkuidze, who made billions in the metal industry in the Urals during the privatisations and subsequently became a minister in Saakashvili's government, and famously promised "to privatise everything except his conscience."

Yet in Georgia there has recently been a reaction against Georgian oligarchs, with mass protests in Tblisi towards the end of last year, which were violently crushed by the Georgian state. At the moment in Georgia there will be confusion and shock at the war, and bitterness against Russia. But the class struggle will break through the hysteria. The nationalist demagogy of Saakashvili is a sign of his weakness. Without it he does not have a stable base of support. All bourgeois politicians and policies in Georgia are empty. The workers have no option but to fight back.

In fact, the rash of wars that scar the planet are not only a sign of reaction. These wars are also a sign of the crisis of the system on a global scale. Globalisation means not only imperialism as an economic and military fact, but also the globalised crisis of capitalism and the potential for the workers to fight back against the ills of capitalism in every country. If Lenin was speaking to workers today, he would begin by hammering home the world crisis of capitalism, and making concrete the perspective of the world revolution, which has already begun in Latin America, and is finding an echo in North America, Europe and the Middle East.

But just as Lenin would underline that there are two Americas, the America of the capitalist and the America of the worker, he also explained at every opportunity that there are two Russias. Inequality has never reached such burning depths as at the present time. The Rublyovka district near Moscow has most billionaires per square kilometre in the world, just as the Russian Duma has more billionaires than any other parliament in the world. These fabulously rich live in effect in another country, with special police protection, like a court procession, when they travel on the roads, stopping the traffic. They have no contact with ordinary Russians, whose incomes are being eroded by inflation, or are being cut outright by the greed of the bosses. This was the case with the miners of Severouralsk.

After two decades of attacks the Russian workers are beginning to fight back. This may be temporarily cut across by the frenzy of Russia's military success. But the Kremlin's foreign policy holds nothing progressive for Russian workers, who have no choice but to fight against their capitalist masters both at home and abroad.

There is no way out for Russian and Georgian workers than to join forces together against imperialist meddling and their own exploiters. The only tradition that can unite all workers regardless for their nationality, language, colour and religion is that of Bolshevism and the tradition of October.

Long live proletarian solidarity!

For a new October!

For a socialist federation of the Caucasus and internationally!

RENEGADE EYE