Natylie Baldwin's Blog, page 174

Paul Robinson: Russia ups the ante in Ukraine

Map of Ukraine

By Paul Robinson, Canadian Dimension, 9/22/22

“War,” said the great Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz, “is an act of force, and there is no logical limit to the application of that force. Each side, therefore, compels its opponent to follow suit; a reciprocal action is started which must lead, in theory, to extremes.”

With this, Clausewitz introduced the concept of escalation into the theory of war. As it meets resistance, each side increases the amount of force it applies, inducing the other side to do likewise, setting in motion an upwards spiral that has no theoretical limit other than the physical capacities of those involved.

So it has proven in the current war in Ukraine. When Russia began hostilities in February, it seems to have envisioned a short war ending in a negotiated settlement. Consequently, it applied only a limited percentage of the resources available to it. But its hopes of quick triumph proved to be in vain. Once it became clear that Ukraine would survive the initial onslaught, Western powers initiated the process of escalation, sending large volumes of military aid to Ukraine. This aid has proven very effective, enabling the Ukrainians first to halt the Russian advance and then to push the Russians back. The culmination of this process was a successful offensive this past month which saw the Ukrainian army recapture a large area of conquered territory without much of a fight.

However, as Clausewitz pointed out, the natural response to setbacks in war is not to give in but to apply more force of one’s own. And thus we should not be surprised that the Russian reaction to its recent defeat has not been to surrender but to escalate even further.

This week, the escalation has taken shape in two important ways. The first consisted of declarations by the authorities in four Russian controlled Ukrainian provinces—Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhe and Kherson—that they would carry out referendums between September 23 and 27. The inhabitants of the provinces will be asked whether they wish to join the Russian Federation.

One may assume that the outcomes of these referendums are pre-determined. When the results are declared, it is almost certain they will claim that the great majority of the population of all four provinces have voted to join Russia. Speaking on Wednesday, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that he would respect the wishes of the people as expressed in the referendums. One may expect, therefore, that soon after the votes are held—perhaps as early as October 1—all four provinces will be absorbed into the Russian Federation.

Putin also used his speech to make an announcement concerning the second form of escalation. For the president declared a partial mobilization, calling up 300,000 military reservists. To date, Russia has only sent around 200,000 troops to the war in Ukraine. While some experts doubt Russia’s logistical ability to effectively deploy another 300,000, the more than doubling of the army’s size in Ukraine cannot but make a difference.

Until now, Russia has had a material advantage over Ukraine in terms of equipment, especially air power and artillery. But the Russians have been at a serious disadvantage in terms of manpower. This is a result of the unwillingness so far to use anything other than contract soldiers and volunteers. Simply put, the Russian army has not committed enough troops to effectively cover the entire 1,000 kilometre front. The partial mobilization of reservists is designed to resolve this problem. It will take several months, however, for the effects to be felt. The Ukrainian army has roughly to the end of the year to press its current advantage. After that, as the Russian reservists reach the front line, it may find the going much harder.

The impact of the forthcoming referenda in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhe and Kherson provinces will be more immediate. The legal framework for what the Kremlin euphemistically calls the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine does not allow the use of conscripts outside of the territory of the Russian Federation. It would, of course, be relatively easy for the Russian government to adopt a new framework, but for economic and political reasons it wishes to avoid doing so. The annexation of the four Ukrainian provinces provides a neat work around. For once they have been absorbed into Russia, their territory is no longer foreign soil according to Russian law, and therefore conscripts could be legally deployed there.

This does not mean that the Russian army will necessarily do so. The political optics of deploying conscripts to the war zone remain poor. But the option will suddenly become available, and even if conscripts are not sent to the front, they could be sent to the newly annexed lands to free up soldiers currently engaged in activities behind the lines. The impending annexations offer up important opportunities for Russia to solve its manpower problems.

Beyond that, the likely absorption of Ukrainian territory into the Russian Federation severely complicates any potential peace negotiations. Although it was clear from the start of the current war that Russia intended eventually to annex Donetsk and Luhansk, it was less clear that it had this intent with regard to other Ukrainian territory it had occupied. Indeed, it seems likely that the initial plan was to use such territory as a bargaining chip that could be traded in for Ukrainian concessions on other matters. The outlines of a peace deal were something along the lines of Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO and accepting the loss of Crimea and Donbas, and in return getting back its other lost territories.

That deal is now firmly off the table. In 2020 the Russian Constitution was amended to state that action “directed at alienating parts of state territory as well as calls to such will not be permitted.” Once the four Ukrainian provinces become part of the Russian Federation, the Russian government will be constitutionally forbidden from giving them back to Ukraine as part of a peace deal. Moreover, it will also be unconstitutional for anybody in Russia even to suggest such a deal. Exchanging land for peace is no longer a possibility.

Russia is now committed to defending its newly conquered territory to the bitter end. If the additional resources announced this week don’t do the trick, then one can expect further escalations down the line. Ukraine, meanwhile, has made it clear that it has no intention of making peace on any terms other than the return of its lost land. Consequently, it is extremely difficult to see how any peace deal could be struck. The most one could possibly hope for would appear to be a ceasefire that freezes the conflict along the front lines existing at the moment that the guns fall silent, without any formal peace treaty (the ending of the Korean War is an example). For that to happen, though, there has to have been a prolonged period of stalemate from which both sides see no obvious exit. We are far from reaching that point.

In the meantime, Western leaders seem to be banking on Ukraine’s ability to achieve a total military victory. This week’s developments make this considerably less likely than before. Somewhat paradoxically, the developments may also mean that the final outcome may end up being less favourable to Ukraine than would have been the case had Western states not given it so much military support. For as previously mentioned, Russia might originally have been willing to give up some of its conquered land in return for various non-territorial concessions. But by enabling Ukraine to mount a successful military resistance, the West has induced Russia to escalate and to now adopt a position that makes a return of the lost territory impossible other than by military means that may be beyond Ukraine’s capacity.

All that, however, remains to be determined. As Clausewitz noted, war is a realm of chance and uncertainty. It would be a rash analyst who dared to predict how this current war will turn out. About the only thing of which one can be confident is that it will continue for a long time yet—certainly many months, and perhaps even years, until the two sides reach a point of mutual exhaustion. Every war must end, but at present this one’s ending seems to be far out of sight.

Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy. He is the author of numerous works on Russian and Soviet history, including Russian Conservatism, published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2019.

Leaked document exposes hidden Western hand behind new British-style anti-worker laws in Ukraine

Photo by Nati on Pexels.com

By Slobodan Kolomoets, RT, 9/1/22

In a scheme which may have been devised in far away London, Europe’s lowest paid workforce has just lost some of the few precious protections it had. The measure flies in the face of Ukraine’s apparent ambitions to join the European Union.

On August 22, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky ratified highly controversial new labor laws, ones that have wide-ranging negative implications for the overwhelming majority of the country’s workers.

Collectively known as Bill 5371, the legislation robs up to 70% of Ukrainian employees of rights and protections provided under the country’s established national labor law, while severely restricting the power of already-embattled trade unions to organize.

President Zelensky’s ruling Servant of the People party argues the “liberalizing” measures are not only necessary, but long overdue, as a result of Kiev’s “extreme over-regulation of employment” contradicting “principles of market self-regulation [and] modern personnel management,” and creating “bureaucratic barriers both for the self-realization of employees and for raising the competitiveness of employers.”

By contrast, in the lead-up to Bill 5371’s ratification, a great many groups within and outside the country expressed outcry at the proposed measures over many months. The International Labour Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency charged with ensuring social and economic justice by safeguarding international labor standards, including conditions of freedom, equity, security and dignity in workplaces worldwide, published a withering and extensive analysis of the proposals – as did Ukraine’s own parliamentary committee on EU integration.

The body charged that the legislation “weakens labor protection, narrows the scope of labor rights and social guarantees of employees, in comparison with the current legislation,” in contravention of Ukraine’s obligations to Brussels under the terms of its Association Agreement. Andrey Reva, Ukraine’s former minister of social policy, has leveled similar charges:

“Employees will no longer have any protection against arbitrary dismissal. Upon hiring, the employee will be asked to sign an employment agreement, which will allow the employer to obtain unilateral advantages during its conclusion and deprive the employee of any legal opportunities for his defense … Why is this being done right now, when Ukraine has submitted an application to join the European Union and is awaiting its consideration?”

Made in Britain

Many comparisons have been drawn between these ‘reforms’ and notorious “zero-hour” contracts, which offer staffers no paid vacation time, limits on daily or weekly hours worked, notice periods, pension contributions, or even guaranteed work in the first place. They have been dubbed by academics as “a post-modern form of slavery.”

Internationally, the use of zero-hour contracts is almost exclusively restricted to Britain, with retailers, service industry operators, bars, restaurants and fast food enterprises throughout the country using them extensively, despite significant controversy. For example, 90% of McDonald’s workers in the country – amounting to almost 100,000 people – are employed on zero-hour terms.

Due to enormous public and trade union pressure, several major businesses that previously relied heavily on zero-hour workers have phased out their usage entirely in recent years, and there are ongoing efforts to ban such contracts outright. In New Zealand, they were outlawed in April 2016 before even taking off in the country.

One might wonder then why such a uniquely British phenomenon will be adopted by a country with which it has so little in common economically. The answer to that disturbing riddle lies in a leaked document revealing London has been intimately involved in covert information warfare operations to sell the deeply damaging new laws to Ukrainians as beneficial, and convince the public to harm their own interests by embracing the change.

The file in question is a communication strategy prepared by research consultancy Abt Associates, on behalf of the British Embassy in Kiev, and Foreign Office unit UK Aid, which officially aims to “achieve sustained poverty reduction,” improve the lot of “poor communities in developing countries,” and advocate for “free and fair work conditions.”

It offers extensive proposals for marketing the new laws, right down to “visual stylistics” to be used in on and offline ad campaigns, social media messaging, and press conferences.

For example, Abt Associates suggested using “contrasting” aesthetics, by “inverting colors” – “light text and graphics on a deep blue background.” The “advantages” of this approach were said to be to be: “brighter, more emotional, eyecatching, will differ from the predominantly white color scheme of publications on the pages of the [Finance] Ministry,” and “gives more opportunities to use creative illustrations.” Nonetheless, the risk that “emotional and vivid communication … will be perceived negatively” was acknowledged.

If that wasn’t manipulative enough, a section offering “recommendations” for “general principles of public communication of the bill” starkly underlines the duplicity and manipulation at the campaign’s core.

Noting that public figures supporting the legislation had to date purely extolled the benefits for employers, Abt Associates proposed inverting this to focusing on ostensible “positive results” for employees.

“Make communication easier and more emotional. Add formats of materials that will contain short simple formulations of key benefits,” the company wrote, going on to endorse surreptitiously enlisting the support of “opinion leaders” such as “journalists and bloggers” via “off-the-record meetings with the participation of the heads of the [Finance] Ministry and (optionally) the authors of the bill.”

“Emotional messages that do not correspond to the tone of the Ministry’s communication may be voiced by third parties,” the document explains.

Examples of messaging to be employed included portraying the “main purpose” of the laws to be “[protecting] new opportunities for both employees and employers,” creating “more opportunities and resources for business development,” and helping workers “get legal jobs faster and easier.”

Conversely, a list of “expected results” from the legislation included in the presentation – not intended for public consumption – ranked “increasing investment in Ukraine’s economy by improving business conditions” above most other potential benefits.

The end of democracy

How much London ultimately spent on this malign effort isn’t clear, although the sums involved could’ve been significant – UK Aid’s budget stands at £150 million, and the Foreign Office spent £40 million on a variety of programs in Ukraine in 2020/21, among them the labor-busting initiative administered by Abt Associates.

Still, British meddling wasn’t entirely successful. After being introduced to parliament in early 2021, legislators consistently refused to back it in significant numbers. This changed on May 12 this year, when the Rada voted in favor of the legislation’s first reading by a landslide – 192 votes to zero.

Pivotal to the laws’ sudden success was support from several previously-opposed political parties and groupings, which were banned less than two weeks earlier by Zelensky’s order. British media outlet openDemocracy speculates this crackdown – and the prospect of MPs belonging to these factions being purged from parliament outright in the future – may have been pivotal in convincing them to vote the ‘right’ way.

Since the 2014 Maidan revolution, Kiev has represented a never-ending feeding frenzy for Western governments and corporations. One of the post-coup government’s first acts was to remove constitutional restrictions on foreign shareholdings in Ukrainian businesses, privatization, and land ownership, and accept sizable loans from predatory US-dominated financial institutions such as the IMF, which opened up the country’s vast natural resources and land for untrammeled overseas plunder and profiteering.

While a great many companies and individuals have benefited handsomely from this wellspring – look no further than America’s first family for example – sizable public opposition to impoverishing neoliberal reforms has to date prevented outright enslavement of the population.

Now, though, with protests prohibited under martial law, opposition parties and dissident media outlets remorselessly censored and banned, scores of government critics – including officials themselves – arbitrarily jailed, and a brutal nationwide effort to root out “traitors” underway, the ability – or willingness – of Ukrainians to take to the streets and oppose measures such as the new anti-worker legislation is harshly truncated, if not eliminated entirely.

In the process, Zelensky’s ruling party is free to steamroll any and all laws through parliament it wishes – and the West’s total takeover of Kiev can finally be completed.

It seems odd that Ukraine is imposing such discredited and reviled arrangements on its citizens when public yearning for EU enrolment is at an all-time high, and high-ranking officials, including Zelensky, are demanding Brussels allow the country immediate entry to the bloc – the terms of Bill 5371 are contrary to Union workers’ directives and protections.

Perhaps, though, London and Washington, for all their pronouncements to the contrary, are unconcerned about Kiev becoming a member – in fact, that might suit their interests better.

Sergei Lavrov’s Speech Before the UN General Assembly, 9/24/22

Link here.

Gilbert Doctorow: From ‘special military operation’ to open war: significance of the referendums in Donbas, Kherson and Zaporozhie

By Gilbert Doctorow, Blog, 9/22/22

The televised speech yesterday morning by Vladimir Putin and the follow-up remarks by his Minister of Defense Shoigu announcing the partial mobilization of Russia’s army reserves to add a total of 300,000 men to the military campaign in Ukraine have been widely reported in the Western press. Plans to hold referendums on accession to the Russian Federation in the Donbas republics this weekend and also in the Kherson and Zaporozhie oblasts in the very near future also were reported by the Western press. However, as is very commonly the case, the interrelationship of these two developments has not been seen, or, if seen, has not been shared with the general public. Since precisely this interrelationship has been highlighted on Russian state television talk shows these past two days, I use this opportunity to bring to my readership the key facts on what turn the ongoing conflict in Ukraine will now take and an updated view of when it will end and with what results.

The very idea of referendums in the Donbas has been ridiculed by mainstream media in the United States and Europe. They are denounced as ‘sham’ and we are told that the results will not be recognized. In fact, the Kremlin does not at all care whether the results are recognized as valid in the West. Their logic lies elsewhere. As for the Russian public, the only critical remark about the referendums has been about the timing, with even some patriotic folks saying openly that it is too early to hold the vote given that the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Zaporozhie and Kherson oblasts have not yet been fully ‘liberated.’ Here too, the logic of these votes lies elsewhere.

It is a foregone conclusion that the Donbas republics and other territories of Ukraine now under Russian occupation will vote to join the Russian Federation. In the case of Donetsk and Lugansk, it was only under pressure from Moscow that their 2014 referendums were about declaring sovereignty and not about becoming part of Russia. Such annexation or merger was not welcomed by the Kremlin back then because Russia was not ready to face the expected massive economic, political and military attack from the West which would have followed. Today, Moscow is more than ready: indeed it has survived very well all the economic sanctions imposed by the West from even before 24 February as well as the ever growing supply to Ukraine of military materiel and ‘advisers’ from the NATO countries.

The vote over joining Russia will likely hit 90% or more in favor. What will immediately follow on the Russian side is also perfectly clear: within hours of the declaration of referendum results, the Russian State Duma will pass a bill on ‘reunification’ of these territories with Russia and within a day or so, it will be approved by the upper chamber of parliament and immediately thereafter the bill will be signed into law by President Putin.

Looking past his service as a KGB intelligence operative, which is all that Western “Russia specialists” go on about endlessly in their articles and books, let us also remember Vladimir Putin’s law degree. As President, he has systematically stayed within domestic and international law. He will do so now. Unlike his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin has not ruled by presidential decree; he has ruled by laws promulgated by a bicameral parliament constituted from several parties. He has ruled in keeping with international law promulgated by the United Nations. UN law speaks for the sanctity of territorial integrity of Member States; but UN law also speaks of the sanctity of self-determination of peoples.

What follows from the formal merger of these territories with Russia? That is also perfectly clear. As integral parts of Russia, any attack on them, and there certainly will be such attacks coming from the Ukrainian armed forces, is a casus belli. But even before that, the referendums have been preceded by the announcement of mobilization, which points directly to what Russia will do further if developments on the field of battle so requires. Progressive phases of mobilization will be justified to the Russian public as necessary to defend the borders of the Russian Federation from attack by NATO.

The merger of the Russia-occupied Ukrainian territories with the Russian Federation will mark the end of the ‘special military operation.’ An SMO is not something you conduct on your own territory, as panelists on the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov talk show remarked a couple of days ago. It marks the beginning of open war on Ukraine with the objective of the enemy’s unconditional capitulation. This will likely entail the removal of the civil and military leadership and, very likely, the dismemberment of Ukraine. After all, the Kremlin warned more than a year ago that the US-dictated course of NATO membership for Ukraine will result in its loss of statehood. However, these particular objectives were not declared up to now; the SMO was about defending the Donbas against genocide and about de-nazification of Ukraine, itself a rather vague concept.

Adding another 300,000 men at arms to the force deployed by Russia in Ukraine represents a near doubling and surely will address the shortages of infantry numbers that has limited Russia’s ability to ‘conquer’ Ukraine. It was precisely lack of boots on the ground that explains Russia’s painful and embarrassing withdrawal from the Kharkov region in the past two weeks. They could not resist the massive concentration of Ukrainian forces against their own thinly guarded hold on the region. The strategic value of the Ukrainian win is questionable, but it greatly enhanced their morale, which is a major factor in the outcome of any war. The Kremlin could not ignore this.

At the press conference in Samarkand last week following the end of the annual gathering of heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Vladimir Putin was asked why he has shown so much restraint in the face of the Ukrainian counter offensive. He replied that the Russian attacks on Ukrainian electricity generating plants which followed the loss of the Kharkov territory were just ‘warning shots’ and there would be much more ‘impactful’ action to come. Accordingly, as Russia moves from SMO to open war, we may expect massive destruction of Ukrainian civil as well as military infrastructure to fully block all movement of Western supplied arms from points of delivery in the Lvov region and other borders to the front lines. We may eventually expect bombing and destruction of Ukraine’s centers of decision-making in Kiev.

As for further Western intervention, Western media have picked up on President Putin’s thinly veiled nuclear threat to potential co-belligerents. Russia has explicitly stated that any aggression against its own security and territorial integrity, such as has been raised by generals in retirement in the USA speaking to national television in the past several weeks about Russia’s break-up, will be met by a nuclear response. When Russia’s nuclear threat is directed at Washington, as is now the case, rather than at Kiev or Brussels, the supposition till now, it is unlikely that policy makers on Capitol Hill will long remain cavalier about Russian military capabilities and pursue further escalation.

In light of all these developments, I am compelled to revise my appreciation of what transpired at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting. Western media have focused full attention on only one issue: the supposed friction between Russia and its main global friends, India and China, over its war in Ukraine. That seemed to me to be grossly exaggerated. Now it appears to be utter nonsense. It is inconceivable that Putin did not discuss with Xi and Modi what he is about to do in Ukraine. If Russia indeed now supplies to its war effort a far greater part of its military potential, then it is entirely reasonable to expect the war to end with Russian victory by 31 December of this year as the Kremlin appears to have pledged to its loyal supporters.

Looking beyond Ukraine’s possible loss of statehood, a Russian victory will mean more than an Afghanistan-like bloody nose for Washington. It will expose the low value of the U.S. military umbrella for EU member states and will necessarily lead to re-evaluation of Europe’s security architecture, which is what the Russians were demanding before their incursion into Ukraine was launched in February.

John Parker – Eyewitness: Human Toll of Eight-Year Ukrainian Army Onslaught in Eastern Ukraine is Shocking

Map of Ukraine

By John Parker, Covert Action Magazine, 9/15/22

The eastern Ukrainian countryside is being littered with Ukrainian Army mines while some towns have been abandoned as residents had to escape Ukrainian Army shelling.

Residents consider Americans who send money to the Ukrainian government in the belief that they are protecting them from the Russians to be “idiotic” and “foolish.”

From May 1 to May 12, I traveled to both Russia and the Lugansk People’s Republic, an independent republic in the Donbas region, formerly part of eastern Ukraine. The purpose of this fact-finding mission initiated by the Socialist Unity Party and Struggle-La-Lucha.org was to report the suppressed information challenging the narrative of NATO and its member states, led by the U.S., in this proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.

My visit to Lugansk was made possible with the assistance of Borotba (Struggle), a socialist political organization in Ukraine and Donbas that we have worked with for many years. Alexey Albu, one of the leaders of Borotba, also provided translation for me during interviews. This is the third part of my report.

On May 8, two days after we visited the Rubizhne shelter, we made our way from Lugansk city to the villages of Sokilnyky and Krymske. Both had recently been taken over by the joint forces of the Lugansk People’s Militia (LPM) and the Russian military.

After the 2014 U.S.-sponsored coup in Ukraine that brought to power a pro-Washington, anti-Moscow regime partnering with fascist forces, the majority Russian-speaking people of the Donbas region decided they did not want any part of this backsliding of history.

Dramatic evidence of the new coup government’s fascist leanings came in its support for the neo-Nazis who burned alive activists at Odessa’s House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014. To this day, none of the perpetrators has been charged with any crime. Given that incident, the people of the Donbas region declared themselves the independent Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR). They voted by 89% in Donetsk and 96% in Lugansk for that change.

Instead of honoring the wishes of the people of Donbas, Kyiv labeled them terrorists and sent armed forces with heavy artillery and aircraft against civilians, threatening to wipe out the population. The Lugansk People’s Militia was organized to defend the area.

Continue reading here.

Jimmy Dore: Ukraine War Planned Years Ago RAND Documents Reveal

Link here.

Luke Sayers – The Philosopher-Dictator: A Review of Geoffrey Roberts’ “Stalin’s Library”

Joseph Stalin

By Luke Sayers, NYU Jordan Center, 9/13/22

I disagree with the writer’s assertion that Stalin was not psychopathic. The level of power and repression Stalin attained required a degree of ruthlessness – combined with being an ideologue – that most average people simply do not possess. In psychology there is what is known as the Dark Triad of negative personality traits, comprised of the psychopath, the narcissist and the Mach (short for Machiavellian). Machs tend to be extremely manipulative, ruthless and highly intelligent. They often lack the impulsiveness of the psychopath and the insecure ego and need for approval of the narcissist. Based on my study of Stalin, I tend to think he was a Mach. Interestingly, Machiavelli was one of Stalin’s favorite political philosophers. – Natylie

Joseph Stalin loved to read books. His vast personal library contained roughly 25,000 volumes, about 400 of which the dictator personally marked and annotated. Most of these books were held in a large library room in his private dacha outside of Moscow, though he eventually needed to move into an adjoining building to make room for his ever-expanding collection. He developed his own library classification system and enlisted the services of a private librarian to help him manage his books. As a good Marxist, his favorite subject was history; his favorite author was Lenin.

In Stalin’s Library: A Dictator and His Books (Yale University Press, 2022), Geoffrey Roberts provides a unique look at Stalin by examining the contents of his personal library. His is an intellectual biography of Stalin, told through analysis of the books he read, the pamphlets he wrote, and the projects he edited.

Stalin would often escape from the demands of running the Soviet Union to find solace in his collection of books. Roberts unpacks this interest in books to show that Stalin was an intellectually rigorous and genuinely curious individual, whose library was not a showpiece but a place of serious thought, reflection, and learning.

Throughout his life, Stalin sought constantly to learn something new. He studied a variety of foreign languages, although he only ever mastered Russian, in addition to his native Georgian. He read extensively in history, often conversing with his guests about topics ranging from Oliver Cromwell to Otto von Bismarck. If a guest made a mistake, he was quick to scold them for their lack of historical perspective.

The first thing Stalin would do when visiting others was to inspect their libraries. He wanted to know what other people were thinking and which authors they were reading. Some of his personal favorites apparently included Lenin, Marx, Engels, Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg, along with future “enemies of the people” Zinoviev, Bukharin, and Trotsky. Though these last three authors would eventually be purged or exiled and executed (Zinoviev in 1936, Bukharin in 1938, and Trotsky in 1940), their volumes lived on in Stalin’s collection because he thought it important to understand his rivals and studied them carefully. As Roberts points out, he probably learned more from Trotsky than from almost anyone else.

Stalin was not only a voracious reader, but also a prolific writer and an astute editor. He authored works like Anarchism and Socialism? (1907), Foundations of Leninism (1924), Dialectical and Historical Materialism (1938), Marxism and the National Question (1942), as well as various essays on Bolshevism and the proletariat. His contributions to theory may have been minimal—although his perspective on “socialism in one country” certainly had a profound influence on Soviet politics—but he achieved much as an efficient simplifier and popularizer of Party ideology.

As editor, he directed the production of the Short Course History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1938), a textbook Roberts thinks expresses Stalin’s own views of Party history. He also oversaw the writing of his own biography (still in progress when he died in 1953), but what may come as a surprise is that, unlike the Short Course, this text downplayed Stalin’s role in the Revolution. Not only was performative modesty an important part of the dictator’s self-presentation, but also, in the Marxist terms of Dialectical Materialism, the Revolution realized not the ambitions of any single person, but the triumphant progress of historical Spirit.

In Roberts’ estimation, Stalin may not have been an original thinker, but he was certainly a serious one. He fashioned himself after the manner of Lenin or Marx, becoming a self-styled philosopher-dictator who could lead the people to communist utopia through rigorous thought and consistent application of Marxist theory to politics.

One of Roberts’ goals in Stalin’s Library is to debunk various conspiracy theories about Stalin. Stalin’s legacy of violence has understandably generated much dubious conjecture—who wouldn’t want an easy explanation for the apparent madness of Stalinist brutality? Some speculate that Stalin was abused as a child or that he felt an almost religious devotion to authoritarian figures in history, such as Ivan the Terrible or Genghis Khan. Others think Stalin planted false flags during the Kremlin Affair surrounding the 1934 killing of Sergei Kirov in order to justify the purges of the 1930s.

In Roberts’ view, however, such theories are not based on hard evidence; in fact, Stalin’s library holds the key to explaining some of the apparent paradoxes such theories claim to reveal. Furthermore, these conspiracy theories distract from the consistency and stability of Stalin’s mind. He was not a psychopath but an ideologue, not personally traumatized but politically driven.

By contrast, Roberts portrays Stalin as a surprisingly normal person. Stalin was confident, direct, extremely efficient in his work, and dedicated to a few guiding ideological principles. He was an intelligent man who, tragically, used his talent to commit some of the worst crimes in history, but he was not the maniacal and irrational brute that many imagine him to have been.

Roberts never defends Stalin or his crimes, but he does affirm Stalin’s rationality, arguing that Stalin’s actions can be understood in light of his ideas. His steadfast pursuit of communist utopia, as expressed in the Marxist ideology and the politics of class warfare, produced the politics of purge and famine that defined the Soviet 1930s. It was a political principle, not personal psychosis, that led Stalin to act as he did.

This attention to rationality is what makes Roberts’ study of Stalin so relevant today, as the world seeks to understand the seemingly impenetrable actions of authoritarian rulers the world over, not least in Russia itself. Dismissing what we do not understand as madness, illness, egoism, or simple despotism, unfortunately, causes us to see possible rational explanations—both realist and ideological—for contemporary global politics.

Perhaps what Roberts discovers about Stalin’s intellectual and political motives is equally true of other world leaders today: the key to understanding their behavior may be hiding in plain sight, in the ideas they discuss, the speeches they make, and the books they read.

Polls: Americans Oppose Increasing Ukraine Aid, Defending Global Democracy

by Kyle Anzalone and Connor Freeman, Libertarian Institute, 9/20/22

Two new polls from Morning Consult and Concerned Veterans for America show at least a plurality of Americans are tired of interventionism. The results show twice as many Americans want to send less aid to Ukraine than those who would support sending more. Meanwhile, only 17% of Americans are concerned about defending democracy around the globe. 

The Joe Biden White House built its foreign policy around the idea it would move away from fighting wars against terrorists in the Middle East, and refocus the Department of Defense on “Great Power Competition.” The administration marketed the policy as “autocracy versus democracy” with the White House leading the Western countries against Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and other ostensibly bad countries. 

The White House has faced some criticism for claiming to promote democracy and selling weapons to brutal tyrants in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE and apartheid Israel. Though Morning Consult’s polling released last week shows the White House’s idea of promoting democracy is not resonating with the American people. 

The poll asked Americans about their views on the country’s most pressing foreign policy challenges. Only 17% of respondents told the pollsters that “upholding global democracy” was a top five concern, ranking 11th behind drugs, climate, immigration, terrorism and the economic crisis. 

The poll was backed by another by Concerned Veterans for America that found US citizens do not want increased involvement in Ukraine. “Only 15% of the American public support sending more military and financial aid to Ukraine than wealthy European countries, with almost twice as many people (34%) wanting to send less assistance,” CVA wrote. Additionally, a majority of Americans only want the assistance to continue if Europeans match the American commitment. 

The poll shows Americans are firmly opposed to military intervention in Ukraine. Over 55% of respondents oppose direct American military intervention while only 14% percent support fighting a war for Kiev. The results for Ukraine were similar to Americans wanting a scaled-back role in the world, with 42% of respondents saying they want a smaller role and only 7% supported more intervention.

Ted Snider – Putin: Lessons From Childhood

Russian President Vladimir Putin

By Ted Snider, Antiwar.com, 9/21/22

As a child growing up in Leningrad, Vladimir Putin lived in a run-down five-story building. He and his parents shared an apartment with two other families. The yard was filled with garbage, and the garbage was filled with rats.

“Putin and his friends used to chase after them with sticks, until one day a large rat, which he had cornered, turned and attacked him, giving him the fright of his life. The memory stayed with him, and years later he would draw the lesson: ‘No one should be cornered. No one should be put in a situation where they have no way out.”

The story is recounted in Philip Short’s biography, Putin. Several lessons from childhood can be found in the biography that seem to have been formative for Putin. Three of them stand out.

No One Should be Cornered

Despite the repeated promises of the US, Germany, the UK and NATO that NATO would not move further east, NATO kept moving east. NATO kept encroaching, moving closer and closer to a Russia that had been explicitly left out of the European Union and now saw the US led military alliance devouring territory as it moved right up to its borders. Russia was being cornered.

As early as 2008, when NATO first announced at the Bucharest summit that Ukraine and Georgia will become members of NATO, the Russian leadership made clear that they saw this decision as an existential threat. Putin warned that NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine was “a direct threat” to Russian security. John Mearsheimer quotes a Russian journalist who reported that Putin “flew into a rage” and warned that “if Ukraine joins NATO, it will do so without Crimea and the eastern regions. It will simply fall apart.”

Over a decade later, Putin was issuing the same plea to the US. On December 2, 2021, Putin asked the US for immediate negotiations and sent a proposal on mutual security guarantees. He asked the US for “reliable and long-term security guarantees” that “would exclude any further NATO moves eastward and the deployment of weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to Russian territory.”

The US declined and closed the door. Russia had no way out.

With NATO crowding Russia’s borders, Ukraine being flooded with lethal NATO weapons and tens of thousands of elite Ukrainian troops massing along the eastern border with Donbas, like that rat in Putin’s yard, Russia was cornered. With its warnings and pleas for immediate negotiations being ignored, Russia saw no way out.

That does not justify the invasion of Ukraine. But the next move had been learned by Putin in his childhood.

Never Bluff

There were many rules taught by the KGB that Putin had already learned as a child “scrapping with the other kids.” One of them was “Don’t reach for a weapon unless you are prepared to use it . . . It was the same on the street. [There] relations were clarified with fists. You didn’t get involved unless you were prepared to see it through.”

When Putin said in 2008 that “if Ukraine joins NATO, it will do so without Crimea and the eastern regions,” the West ignored him, thinking it was a bluff. But Putin learned as a child not to bluff. You don’t threaten action unless you are “prepared to see it through.”

With the US becoming increasingly directly involved in the war, not only providing weapons, training and targeting intelligence, but even going so far as war-gaming with and advising the Ukrainian military, Russia set a new red line.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked the US to go beyond the HIMARS rocket systems with their 50 mile range and provide “a missile system with a range of 190 miles, which could reach far into Russian territory.”

On September 15, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova declared that if the US agrees to supply those longer range missiles to the Ukrainian army, “it would cross the red line and become an actual party to the conflict.” The Russian spokeswoman then added that “In such a scenario, we would have to come up with an adequate response.” Russia, she reminded the West, “reserves the right to defend its territory using any means available.”

A week later, on September 21, Putin repeated that warning himself. On top of the threat of longer range missiles, Putin said some leading NATO countries had talked about the possibility of using nuclear weapons against Russia and said, “I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. Putin then said, “This is not a bluff.”

As a child, Putin learned that you “Don’t reach for a weapon unless you are prepared to use it.”

Recognizing that providing Ukraine with longer range guided missiles that could strike Russian territory “would likely be seen by Moscow as a major provocation,” that that provocation could lead to World War III and that the benefits “during the next stage of the war” “would be minimal,” Biden seems to be resisting Zelensky’s latest request.

Never Back Down

Putin is not spontaneous or rash. His ex-wife, Lyudmila, said that “Everything he did was always thought through.” A Swedish diplomat who knew him said that “he sizes up his opponents coldly and soberly, and anticipates his own and others’ actions well before he makes the first chess move.”

When you do make that move, you commit to the sequence of moves it sets off. “If something happens,” Putin once said, “you should proceed from the fact that there is no retreat. It is necessary to carry it through to the end.” The KGB taught that rule, but Putin says that he already knew it because he “learnt it much earlier, scrapping with kids.”

Putin would repeat that “carry it through to the end” formulation. “If you want to win a fight,” he said, “you have to carry it through to the end, as if it were the most decisive battle of your life.”

Though the US and its NATO allies repeatedly commit to arming and aiding Ukraine for the duration, Putin has shown no sign of retreating or backing down. Having seemingly now concluded that Russia is fighting, not a regional war against Ukraine, but a protracted global war against “the entire Western military machine,” on September 21, Putin ordered a partial mobilization of up to 300,000 reserves. The mobilization will include only military reservists “who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience,” representing about 1% of Russia’s full potential.

Russia sees NATO encroachment and NATO presence in Ukraine as an existential threat. Putin learned as a child that “there is no retreat” and that “you have to carry it through to the end, as if it were the most decisive battle of your life.”

Shoigu: Russia at War With Collective West Rather Than Ukraine

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu

Sputnik, 9/21/22

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made public remarks after Putin’s speech. I have not yet been able to find a transcript of Shoigu’s remarks but this is a summary report from Sputnik. – Natylie

Both Russian president Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu delivered speeches on Wednesday in the wake of announcements by the Donbass Republics as well as the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions that they are planning to hold votes on joining Russia on September 23-27.

In his TV address on Wednesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Russia was at war with the collective West rather than Ukraine.

“In reality, we are fighting the collective West plus NATO. When we speak about it, we mean not only the weapons being supplied [to Kiev] in huge batches, but also about systems of communication and information processing systems,” Shoigu said.

The Western states as well as NATO, he said, are supplying Kiev with “huge” amounts of weapons.

The minister went on to stress that the Ukrainian forces are increasingly using Western weapons to target civilian infrastructure, including hospitals.

He stressed that more than 70 military satellites and 200 civilian satellites are working to aid Ukraine and added that some 150 Western military specialists have been deployed to Kiev, de facto leading Ukrainian forces.

Military Losses of Russia and Ukraine

Touching upon the issue of the military costs of the armed conflict in Ukraine, Sergei Shoigu estimated that Kiev has lost half of its army, which originally had about 200,000 troops at the initial stage of Moscow’s special operation.

“Over this time, their losses amount to over 100,000 [military casualties]. This includes 61,207 deaths and 49,368 troops who were injured,” Shoigu said.

Over 2,000 foreign mercenaries were eliminated in Ukraine in the past months by Russians, the minister said, adding that 1,000 remain at the combat zone.

Russian losses, Shoigu noted, amount to 5,937, noting that the servicemen were “courageously fulfilling their duties.”

Partial Mobilization

Shoigu has also provided details on the military’s plans, explaining that partial mobilization in Russia is necessary to hold a 1,000-kilometer wide line of control and the liberated territories.

“Naturally, what is behind, and what is there, along this line, it must be secured, these territories must be controlled. And, of course, first of all, this is what this work is being done for – I mean, partial mobilization,” Shoigu said.

He said that only one percent out of Russia’s 25 million-strong military reserve will be subject to partial mobilization. He specified that reserve servicemen who have military professions and combat experience will be mobilized, adding that this will not concern students.

Sergei Shoigu said that the Russian forces fully control the territory of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), partially control the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, and added that they are advancing in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).

The LPR and the DPR as well as the Russian-held parts of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions have announced they would hold referendums to join Russia from September 23-27.

The move was followed by President Putin signing a decree on the partial mobilization in Russia.

Below is an interview Shoigu gave to Russian media today.

Link here.