How? On the morning of February 24, information was received about missile strikes on the territory of Ukraine. Putin’s statement about the start of a “special military operation” in Ukraine was published.
Why? The Russian bourgeoisie wants to solve its problems and protect selfish, primarily economic, interests in the region. The operation of the Russian troops should dampen the indignation of the masses of the falling living standards and boost Putin’s approval rating.
What is happening now? According to reports, Russian troops entered Ukrainian territory. Representatives of the ruling elite are fleeing Ukraine. The population is being evacuated from cities. The burden falls on the working people.
What’s next? In the Russian Federation, this will be reflected in a sharp decline in the quality of life of workers. On the morning of February 24, the exchange rate of the ruble fell sharply. Russian retail chains will start to inflate prices. The reactionary hysteria will increase many times over on both sides. The current of chauvinism and nationalism, with which they are trying to fool the majority of the people, will not be able to hide the truth: neither Russian nor Ukrainian working people wanted this war. It was imposed on them by the ruling class.
What to do? The rapid development of events should not plunge the Russian communists into a panic. It is necessary not to succumb to bourgeois propaganda, but calmly and methodically explain to the working people the essence of the “operation”. The effective activities of workers and communists are possible only if there is a real communist organization, which, unfortunately, was not created in peacetime in both countries. However, the contradictions of capitalism, which are aggravated during the war, inevitably lead to an understanding by the masses of the gravity of their position.
Communists should use them to develop class consciousness. “The experience of the war, like the experience of any crisis in history, of any great calamity and any sudden turn in human life, stuns and breaks some people, but enlighten and tempers others. Taken by and large, and considering the history of the world as a whole, the number and strength of the second kind of people have — with the exception of individual cases of the decline and fall of one state or another — proved greater than those of the former kind”. (Lenin, “The Collapse of the Second International”)
At this moment, we wish all conscious communists to intensify their work and unite as soon as possible on the basis of Marxist-Leninist theory. We wish the working people not to panic, not to be provoked, to observe precautions and remember that the main reason for such disasters is capitalism.