Editorial
Russia
Re-establishes its Imperialist Credentials
On August 8
Georgian military forces launched an all-out assault against the break-away
province of South Ossetia, levelling the capital city
of Tskhinvali and killing a reported 1,500 civilians
and a number of Russian peacekeepers. A day later, Russian tanks, artillery and
thousands of troops poured across the border, while Russian planes bombed
military targets in both South Ossetia and Georgia. Military forces in
Abkhazia, another de facto
independent region of Georgia, also launched attacks against Georgian forces.
By the time a ceasefire was declared five days later, Russian forces had
essentially cut the country in half and had blocked Georgian access to the
Black Sea. The ceasefire called for both sides to withdraw their forces to
their pre-August 8 positions, but Russian officials stated that Georgia could
forget about ever regaining sovereignty over South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Both the
Russians and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili are claiming innocent victim status in this
conflict. The Russians are claiming that Georgia launched an unprovoked attack
against its citizens (70 percent of South Ossetians
hold Russian passports), while Saakashvili is
claiming that Russia’s illegal invasion of Georgia had prompted the August 8
Georgian “counter-offensive”. However, while both sides may be able to make a
claim for victim status, neither side can claim innocence. There is more than
enough blame to go around, not only to Russia and Georgia, but to the U.S. and
European Union, as well.
While the
Caucasus region has a long history of tribal and national conflicts, the roots
of the present conflict are not to be found in ancient history, but in the U.S.
efforts to destabilize the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
One of the methods to achieve that was the pouring of millions of dollars into
the hands of ethnic nationalist groups, especially in the western and Trans-Caucasian
republics of the USSR, to stir up racial and ethnic hatred that had largely
been eliminated during the period of socialism.
There are many
small nations co-existing in the Trans-Caucasian region, the region between the
Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Since the 1920s, the borders of the Georgian SSR
were changed several times, but at the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union
in the early 1990s Abkhazia and South Ossetia were included within Georgia’s borders
as autonomous regions. Although the peoples of both regions expressed a desire
to stay within the USSR when Georgia split from the union, Georgia ignored
their right to self-determination (while demanding such a right for itself) and
sought to keep them through force. During the ensuing wars, Georgian forces
were driven out of most of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Russian peacekeeping
forces were stationed in them through the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS), of which Georgia was (and is) a member. For all intents and purposes,
both regions have been independent from Georgia since 1993.
Georgia occupies
a strategic area of the Caucasus, bordering on Turkey in the south and the
Black Sea on the west. The U.S. has coveted the country, at least since the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, as a gateway to the vast Caucasian and Central
Asian oil and gas resources. Since the early 1990s, Georgia has been reduced to
little more than a U.S. protectorate. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
(BTC) oil pipeline was completed in 2005 to transport oil from Central Asia to
Turkey, and from Turkey to Europe. It was built by U.S. and European interests
as a means of transporting oil from the region without passing through either
Russian or Iranian territory. There are also plans to build a parallel gas
pipeline, as well as an undersea pipeline from Turkey to Israel. Whoever
controls Georgia controls access to Caucasian and Central Asia oil and gas. This
is why the U.S. has been so adamant about fast-tracking Georgia into NATO in
recent years.
Since the rise
to power of Vladimir Putin, Russia has been attempting to restore its past
glory as a big power. It has suffered a series of humiliations at the hands of
the Americans over the past several years as one after another of the former
Soviet republics has joined NATO and the U.S. bloc. The U.S. and EU also
ignored Russia’s concerns over their recognition of Kosovo’s independence from
Serbia, treating Russia as a third-rate country of little significance.
However, over the past several years Russia has taken advantage of the U.S.
being bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan to reassert its power. Russia is
itself a major oil and gas producing country and its
economy has been buoyed by high energy prices. It has used that position to
pressure the countries in its “near abroad”, as well
as various Western European countries. It has also established a very close
relationship with China and, one by one, has pushed the U.S. out of the Central
Asian republics which had allowed the U.S. to set up military bases during the
initial period of U.S. aggression against Afghanistan. At the end of July
Russia concluded a deal with Turkmenistan which gives the Russian company Gazprom a monopoly over gas exports from that country,
including its exports to China. The deal does not appear to give Russia any
economic benefits, but the strategic benefits are enormous, as it gives Russia
a virtual stranglehold on world gas supplies. It also dealt a major blow to the
U.S. imperialists who invaded Afghanistan and Iraq with precisely the same
objective of gaining a monopoly over Central Asian energy resources.
It is clear that
Georgia, whose army is supplied and trained by the Americans and Israelis,
would never have launched a military assault against South Ossetia without the
permission of its masters. It is not as clear what the U.S. sought to gain from
the adventure. Perhaps it miscalculated Russia’s willingness and/or ability to
protect its own imperialist interests. Whatever the U.S. aim was, it clearly
backfired. Russian imperialism flexed its muscles and attacked a U.S. client
state, calling the American bluff. The U.S. is unable to respond militarily
because it is tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan. The EU countries are unwilling
to do anything because they are dependent on Russian natural gas. Georgia’s
armed forces are relatively weak and poorly trained. Just as the U.S. invaded
tiny Grenada to restore its imperial status after its humiliating defeat at the
hands of the Vietnamese people, Russia chose this war against Georgia to
declare to the world that it is once again a power to be reckoned with. It is
obvious from Russia’s rapid response to Georgia’s August 8 aggression that it
was expecting the attack and most likely welcomed it, if it didn’t actually maneouvre the U.S. and Georgia into launching it.
The
Russo-Georgian conflict demonstrates the truth of Lenin’s observation that
imperialism necessarily means war and aggression. In this case, both U.S.
imperialism, Russian imperialism and the reactionary Georgian government bear
equal blame for the loss of human life and destruction that has befallen the
South Ossetian and Georgian people. They are all
guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and should be condemned as
such. This conflict also demonstrates the folly of small nations seeking to
advance their national interests by subordinating themselves to one or another
of the big powers. Despite their promises, all of Georgia’s big power allies
left it to face Russia on its own, sacrificing it as fodder to their own
imperialist interests. For their part, the people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia
will also learn that Russia has no interest in protecting their right to
self-determination and independence, as the Chechen people have already
learned. Russia will never permit those regions to become independent states,
but will absorb them into its own territories.
The escalation
of tensions in the Caucasus also increases the possibility of war between the
big imperialist powers for the re-division of the world. The only hope for
peace and security for the people of this region is to put an end to all
alliances with the big powers and to establish a federation of Trans-Caucasian
peoples capable of taking control of the energy resources of the region for
their own benefit. So long as the big imperialist powers treat the area as if
it belonged to them, the peoples of the region can only expect one disaster
after another.