RFA asks "but does it matter?" in regard to this ongoing trend towards revitalized Russian Bolshevism, pointing to the fact that the bourgeois state won't allow for the communists to gain power electorally: "the new Duma will present no real challenge to the Kremlin, which is now focused on the presidential election due in 2024, when Putin's fourth term expires." The imperialists will support Putin over communism, which they see as an even bigger threat. And they can for now console themselves with the fact that bourgeois "democracy" will always truncate the ability of the workers, in Russia and everywhere else, to gain governmental representation. But the Bolsheviks faced the same hopelessly restrictive electoral system, until they gained power anyway by smashing that system and replacing it with workers' democracy.
If the Russian bourgeoisie hadn't broken the country away from being a client state, they would have made the prospect of an October Revolution 2.0 far closer. But however much time they've bought themselves, capitalism is innately unsustainable, and in all places it trends towards declining profits in the long term. We're seeing this most dramatically throughout the imperialist bloc, where monopoly capitalism has accumulated so much debt, is seeing its inflation accelerate so much, and has undergone such a decline in profits since World War II that one can conclude it's now dying a natural death. Its demise will likely come before that of Russian monopoly capitalism, which is ironically in a more stable state despite its being semi-peripheral. The neo-colonies will continue to become more economically independent due to the Belt and Road Initiative, and due to their internal workers' movements. Which will cut off the superprofits imperialism depends on, leading to the contraction of capital in the core and the practical necessity of proletarian revolution.
Ultimately, capitalism will die within Russia as well, despite how well it's been able to withstand being cut off from western capital. But that won't be because of any of Washington's hybrid-warfare tactics, which if anything have ended up strengthening Russia's internal stability. It will be because of capitalism's innately self-destructive nature, and because of the work of Russia's proletarian movement. The Russian state indeed will eventually fall, just not in the way Washington wants it to. Rather than getting balkanization and a neo-colonial takeover, Russia will get socialism, which can even better fight off imperialism. Or whatever remains of imperialism by the time the Soviet Union gets restored.
An obstacle to the Soviet Union's return has been the deradicalization of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the party that called for Operation Z to be undertaken. However, as class contradictions intensify during wartime and the pandemic, the CPRF's membership is getting more radicalized, making the party more equipped to ideologically compete with ultra-leftist Russian Marxist groups like Politsturm (a hyper-sectarian organization that claims modern Russia is imperialist). This shift has been observed by RFA, again with that desire to see Russia's bourgeois state successfully suppress the party:
Thirty-seven-year-old Moscow professor Mikhail Lobanov -- who lost a single-mandate race to United Russia's Oleg Popov, according to preliminary official figures that he disputes -- could be another [potential leader]. Lobanov's candidacy was supported by the KPRF, although he is not a party member. He sees a changing party, one that could be less amenable to the Kremlin in the long run. "The KPRF has been under pressure for the last 20 or more years," Lobanov said of the party's role as party of the so-called systemic opposition -- ostensibly opposition parties that generally support the Kremlin in exchange for a share of the perks of power. "Some things that look in my eyes and the eyes of others like unjustifiable compromises are likely the result of this pressure. It is clear that in connection with the radicalization of the KPRF or the radicalization of its rank-and-file membership and some individual deputies, this pressure is going to increase, and repressions may be used against the organization as a whole."
Russia will remain a stable, united federation, before transforming back into a Soviet republic in tandem with all the surrounding countries that also wish to join the next USSR. Ukraine will keep suffering from the chaos that Washington has brought upon it, being used as an increasingly worn-out weapon in a futile effort to destabilize Eurasia. So will be the case for the rest of Europe, which has willingly offered itself up to be economically sacrificed for Washington's fruitless war. U.S. hegemony's decline will continue to accelerate due to the blowback from the Ukraine conflict, which has solidified the Global South's lack of support for Washington's military adventurism. This war will break the imperialist bloc, while failing to break Russia or the rest of the pro-China bloc, whose capitalist members will in time have their counterrevolutions reversed.
The imperialists have defeated themselves, with Ukraine being the weapon of theirs that's backfired on them. And it's because they gained access to that weapon with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. They should have been careful what they wished for.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
