AT the Group of 8 meeting (G8) of the largest industrialised nations, the Russian Stalinist bureaucracy voted for regime change in Libya and then volunteered its services to President Obama to negotiate with Colonel Gadaffi for him to stand down so that Libya can be recolonised and robbed of its oil and gas resources.
Up to the G8 meeting, the Russian leadership had been condemning the US, UK and France for breaching the UN resolution which gave the go-ahead to NATO military action in Libya to ‘protect civilians’ but ruled out the regime change that was so obviously on the agenda of the imperialist powers.
In fact, the imperialist powers were amazed when both Russia and China abstained at the UN Security Council. They had expected a veto by the two states. This would have forced them to take action outside the cover of the UN Security Council.
However, the Stalinist bureaucracies in Russia and China, which are both propping up world capitalism economically and politically, decided to curry favour with the imperialist powers by allowing them to attack Libya.
The next battle line emerged over whether regime change would be tolerated, if the US and UK were forced to go back to the UN Security Council to get its support for that policy.
Now they do not have to do this. They have been given the go-ahead by the heirs of Stalin – Medvedev and Putin – who are revealing for all to see that Stalinism remains a counter-revolutionary force that strengthens imperialism by sacrificing the gains of the working class and the oppressed nations.
Now, while Russian diplomats are negotiating with Gadaffi and his leadership group, the Anglo- French imperialists will be seeking, at the same time, to murder the Libyan leader with their helicopter gunships.
Presumably, the Russian initiative will provide good information for the UK and France to act on in their next assassination attempts.
Presumably, if Gadaffi is murdered by the imperialist powers, the Stalinists will volunteer that he brought it on himself since he would not listen to their pleas to surrender and to go into exile quietly to await future charges by the imperialist puppet court at the Hague.
The line is being peddled by the supporters of the Stalinist bureaucracy that the Russian leadership had to take this step, since it was the only way to get an assurance from Obama that there will be no intervention into Syria, with which Russia has close political, military and economic relations, and which is itself an ally of Iran.
However, it is part of the ABC of imperialist conduct that if they are successful in killing Gadaffi and occupying Libya, any assurances given will be ripped up as US imperialism sends its running dogs, the UK and France, to wage the same regime change war against Syria.
It was Leon Trotsky, in his work The Revolution Betrayed, who analysed the Stalinist bureaucracy as the most counter-revolutionary force in the workers’ movement.
He outlined that the Stalinist bureaucracy would attempt to restore capitalism, and that Russia’s path to socialism required a political revolution to overthrow the bureaucracy to restore workers’ and peasants’ soviets as part of the advance of the world socialist revolution.
The Stalinist bureaucracy have not been lacking in their attempts to restore capitalism to Russia.
It however remains a very much degenerated workers’ state whose future development will be determined by the progress of the world socialist revolution in overthrowing capitalism and imperialism.
This year the Medvedev-Putin leadership has delivered repeated blows against the Libyan revolution in support of imperialism, at the same time as the Russian workers have demonstrated in support of the Libyan people and Gadaffi.
Russian workers must respond to Medvedev’s treachery by taking to the streets and taking revolutionary action to overthrow the bureaucracy and restore full Soviet power.
